Covering Religion :: Icon of the New Russian Martyrs

To Orthodox Christians, icons are more than mere representations of the divine. They are "Windows to the Kingdom." Icons remind believers that matter and time can and should be transfigured. They don't represent a particular saint or holy figure, but rather, the presence of that saint or holy figure. That is their artistic and mystical purpose: to bring to our escaping present that which is inescapably eternal.

The New Russian Holy Martyrs Icon is no exception to this purpose. Dedicated to all those who died in the name of the church during Soviet times and who were later glorified in August 2000, this icon takes many scenes of terror and persecution--instances of temporal defeat--and transforms them one by one into instances of eternal victory.
Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow is home to the New Martyrs Icon. It is also the temple chosen as a model for the icon's centerpiece because that church is viewed in itself as a victorious martyr. It was destroyed by Stalin in 1931and majestically reconstructed from 1994 to 1997. However, the icons in this church contrast sharply in style with the New Martyrs Icon. This particular icon exemplifies a recent comeback to the styles and compositional canons developed during Byzantium and XIV to XVI century Russia. In contrast, the icons at Christ the Savior are representative of a style developed during the XIX century. For present-day iconographers, this was a period of decay in iconography when Western European influences "contaminated" a centuries-old artistic tradition.

Nonetheless, while the New Martyrs Icon delves into the ancient roots of iconography, it also embraces a contemporary, modern subject matter. This presented a captivating challenge to the team of commissioned iconographers headed by Archpriest Aleksandr Saltikov at the St. Tikhon Orthodox Theological Institute in Moscow. It was a titanic task that required extensive planning, research, testing and execution, not to mention inspiration. Four noted Russian iconographers--Maria Glebova, Tatiana Kants, Natalya Maravyove and Tatiana Androsova-finished the project in only one-and-a-half years, and just two months before the new martyrs were glorified. According to canonical tradition, an icon of the person or persons being canonized needs to be finished in order to be used and blessed during the glorification ceremony.

Since iconography is more preoccupied with what Saltikov calls "spiritual realism," its stylistic and compositional canon is not concerned with portraying reality as we normally perceive it. This is one of the reasons why Orthodox iconography resorts to what is known as "inverse perspective," a kind of perspective that places the vanishing point not inside the painting, but outside, where the seer is. In other words, images always appear to be on a bi-dimensional plane. In this manner, the images are intended to move toward us, not away from us. Also characteristic in icons is the lack of shadows and the use of "broken angles" to reflect (in a way similar to Picasso) different points of view on a flat surface. But despite some of its fixed rules, iconography has produced different styles throughout the years.

For the icon that concerns us, iconography from the XVI century was carefully studied. Saltikov remarked that this particular period was chosen not only for its majestic style, but also for its preoccupation with depicting the eternal above the temporal. A series of 15 scenes numbered from left to right portray some of the most tragic and infamous moments during the Soviet persecution. The scenes were carefully arranged around the icon's centerpiece. In Russian, these images are called kleimo, which literally means "mark" or "branding." (For clarity purposes, this online feature refers to them simply as "scenes.") Yet in all of these scenes, earthly detail gives way to eternal symbolism. For example, many (if not all) of the martyrs here are portrayed not in the clothes with which they were found, but rather with more ritualistic garments, a symbol of their holy passage to the eternal.
Several compositional principles were used to arrange the general order of the scenes - dynamic symmetry, harmonic alternation, and mutual complementarities. While the scenes on the right side depict the suffering of individual saints, the scenes on the left show instances of more massive executions. This illustrates dynamic symmetry. Color also determined the placement of each scene within the icon. Seeking to create a system of "harmonic alternation," scenes two, seven and 15 are predominantly pink, while scenes three, six and ten are predominantly green. The principle of mutual complementarities was also used to harmonize the spatial relationship between the centerpiece and the scenes. For example, the centerpiece is crowded with figures (both recognizable and anonymous), while the subjects in the peripheral scenes are surrounded by relatively vast amounts of space. In addition, individual scenes on the left and right sides depict motion, while in the centerpiece and the lower panel a state of restful serenity prevails.

Except for the upper panel of the icon where a consort of apostles and saints flank each side of Christ's image, the centerpiece and all the scenes in this icon can be explored individually. Simply click on any of these elements on the icon to link to a page offering a larger image of that scene and a concise explanation. All images were used with permission by Archpriest Aleksandr Saltikov, and the texts are adaptations to English from online documents found on Tikhon Theological Institute's website.