The display “Star Most Bright…” was opened in the art department of the Vologda State Museum-Preserve on November 27. Residents and guests of Vologda can see icons of the Virgin painted in the 18th – 19th centuries from the tempera painting collection of the Kirillo-Belozersky Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve.
The exhibition presents various iconographies of the most venerated icons in the Russian Orthodox tradition – the images of the Virgin. Their iconography was formed on the base of the main sources: the Gospels, the works of the Church Fathers and the Teachers of the Church, the lives of saints, and the Biblical apocrypha. The image of the Virgin is of exceptional importance in the Christian religion.
The following information was placed on the website of the Vologda State Museum-Preserve: “There were icons of the Virgin in every church, chapel, house, tsar’s palace, public office and educational institution in the vast expanses of Russia. Over 1000 venerated and miracle-working icons were painted in the country within 11 centuries of the Christian culture. Plenty of churches in the cities, villages and monasteries were dedicated to the Mother of God. Russia itself is considered to be “Domain of the Virgin”.
The icons of the 16th centuries were underestimated for a long time and were seldom exhibited. But they are certainly interesting to modern viewers as they give them a chance to get to the social, historical and cultural milieu of the Russian society of the modern age”.
In all, the display “Star Most Bright…” presents 42 icons. Almost all of them are exhibited for the first time. L.M. Kharlapenkova, head of the Sector of Permanent and Temporary Exhibitions in the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve, is the curator of this exhibition.
