The complex multi-figure image of the New Testament Trinity with the Calendar includes more than thirty plots and several hundred characters. The icon is Orthodox encyclopedia of a kind: the composition presents the plots of the New Testament and depicts holidays and saints by the day of their commemoration.
The New Testament Trinity with the Calendar
Creation period
Late 17th century
Dimensions
177x173 cm
Technique
Tempera
Collection
Exhibition
9
Open in app#1
Unknown author
The New Testament Trinity with the Calendar
#6
#7
The artist used bright colors for the icon: green, scarlet, lilac, etc. The Pastures of Heaven are full of blossoming flowers on curly stems. Such realistic plants are a feature of the image, because Yaroslavl icons are usually characterized by fancy conventionality of images. The composition of the icon is also unusual: the figures of the saints are arranged into rings of different sizes. Similar icons are not encountered elsewhere in Russian art.
#8
In the central ring, the New Testament Trinity is depicted: God the Father is sitting on the right, God the Son is sitting on the left, with the Crucifix located between them. On his knee, Christ has a book with a quote from the Gospel of Matthew: All things have been committed to me by my father… In the top part of the ring, the Holy Spirit is depicted as a dove.
#9
In the twelve rings closest to the center are the symbols of the authors who wrote the Gospels of the New Testament. In the inner rings, there are also angelic ranks: archangels, angels, powers, and others.
In the twelve distal rings, the holy calendar is presented, that is, a list of church holidays and saints arranged by the days of their commemoration. The upper ring is dedicated to September; the remaining months of the year containing other miniatures are located clockwise.
#10
The New Testament Trinity with the Calendar was kept in the Fyodorovskaya Church of Our Lady in Yaroslavl. The temple was built in the second half of the 17th century by the inhabitants of the Yaroslavl Tolchkovskaya settlement. A detailed narrative about the life of the Fyodorovsky parish, the construction and decoration of churches has survived to this day. The New Testament Trinity with the Calendar icon is also mentioned there. The chronicles hold it that it took the icon painters a whole year to complete the board with all the saints located within the 12 month rings.
#11
Probably, this complex and large-sized icon was created by local artists whose names are not mentioned in the chronicles. Presumably, the image was ordered from an artist who painted it together with his apprentices. The story reads that one hundred rubles were paid for this icon alone; it was a very large sum of money back then, and it exceeded the cost of the other icons by far. For comparison, all the 67 rank images composing the iconostasis of the Fyodorovskaya Church of Our Lady cost only 70 rubles taken together.
#12
Yaroslavl Museum Reserve
read morehide
00:00
00:00
1x
The New Testament Trinity with the Calendar
Creation period
Late 17th century
Dimensions
177x173 cm
Technique
Tempera
Collection
Exhibition
9
Point your smartphone camera to open in the appOpen in app
Share
