About the Greek iconographic original

At first, Christian art was a free profession; Anyone who had the skill and technical training to do so could do it. The religious system of the Christian community and its fearfully cautious attitude towards the art of the ancient world protected young art, if not from invasion, then at least from the dissemination of images that were alien to it in content or made with some deliberately false idea. Although such images were circulated in heretical circles of the first centuries, they were never accepted into the general church environment and were recognized as inappropriate and malicious works, along with literary works that came from the pens of private individuals or sects alienated by the church. True, the advice given by Clement to the Christians of Alexandria regarding the fact that the symbols they carved on rings and rings should be of a Christian and not pagan nature, then the not entirely flattering reviews of Irenaeus and Epiphanius about various kinds of religious works of the brush and chisel of the Gnostics show that even then there were some kind of boundaries, beyond which this or that work of art became forbidden, apocryphal. These boundaries, or better said, this discriminating attitude towards objects of art, were expressed not in the form of prohibitive measures, not in the form of supervision by church authorities, but came from the very mood of the Christians of that time, from their religious ideals. It is hardly even possible to admit the thought that, for example. in the catacombs, where works of the brush are often distinguished by their relaxed freedom and richness of creativity, painting was performed under the supervision of church clergy. If, to put it today, there was control, then it determined only the general requirements that the artist had to obey in his work and never extended to the little things and details in the sense of a finished frame, or a sample for the executed image. The ancient church did not know iconographic rules in this sense; on the contrary, she treated pictorial subjects freely, paying attention to their meaning and symbolism, and even allowed such images as Orpheus, the phoenix, Cupid and Psyche, which were either directly taken from ancient art, or were made under the influence of Greco-Roman models and techniques. This was all the more convenient because in the beginning most of the works of Christian art had decorative value, serving, for example. in the catacombs, decorating coffins, crypts and various kinds of everyday objects in the family and home. If it is sometimes possible to find in the most ancient monuments of Christian art some uniformity in the setting and composition of symbolic and historical subjects, then this did not occur from the existence of any authorized and mandatory church rules, but came from the properties of the depicted subject, from the imitation of ready-made models and the existence of ordinary artistic techniques. Routine, as always, forced those ordinary masters to follow the path of imitation, who in their occupation found a means of living and were satisfied with ready-made samples that found good sales and safe use. Over time, when art became closely related to church cult, when the number of iconographic subjects increased, and these latter diversified in their execution, the former completely free attitude to paintings turned out to be inconvenient: it began to be accompanied by consequences that cast an unfavorable light on the religious character of pictorial images. As a result of this state of affairs, there was a need to protect the execution of sacred images from the arbitrariness of artists, to bring them closer to church understanding and to place them in close relation to how they were presented and developed in the Bible, tales of saints and church hymnography. The iconoclastic unrest gave a decisive, one might say, impetus for resolving the issue of supervision over the activities of icon painters and thus predetermined the question of the original. In what form the task of church control was presented here and the position of the artist was determined - an expression of this can be one of the resolutions of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which clearly states that icons are created not by the invention (ἐφεύρεσις) of the painter, but by virtue of the inviolable law and tradition (θεσμοθεσία καὶ παράδοσις) of the universal church, that to compose and prescribe is not the work of the painter, but of the holy fathers: these latter have the right of composition (διάταξις) of icons, and the painter has only their execution (τέχνη), the technical part, understood in the narrow sense of the word, that is, drawing, coloring, external mechanical work. And so, as if instead of the patristic theoretical system of icon painting, there is an icon painting original. From what sources did the latter take its content and in what relation do its rules about the method of depicting this or that plot stand to the types and forms of ancient Christian art? Having said that the iconographic original was caused by the need to give unity and uniformity to iconographic images, to introduce a more ecclesiastical character into their execution, we should not at all imagine these rules as a legislative act of church authority, an order for painters to follow one or another recognized model and nothing more. No, the formation of the original cannot in any way be separated from the general history of church art. In this latter, the main principles of the later edition of iconographic types were laid and the most important elements were developed from which the code of the original was formed; and therefore, to study the foundations of the latter, it is necessary to take into account the whole mass of historically developed forms of church painting and, following the gradual changes in these latter, discover in them the very foundations of the original. For this work, the first and necessary aid is collections and photographs from monuments of church art, both Eastern and Western, and then literary sources in which descriptions of various kinds of iconographic subjects have been preserved to us. Both of these sources, taken together, provide material for the history of the formation of the original, all the more valuable because the rules regarding painting for a long time were not written down and formulated, and were transmitted through practical instructions and through the study of ready-made samples. That is why, much earlier than the written presentation of the rules of the original, a remarkable uniformity had already been established in the East in the manner of depicting church subjects and these images, with a few exceptions, coincided with the rules that were subsequently formulated in the code of the original. This shows that despite its protective purpose, the original always stood depending on the most stable and most often repeated iconographic types and gave sanction to these latter as the best and most perfect. As an example, I will point to images of the Nativity, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. In the later original, they were formulated in the same form and with such details as they were found several centuries earlier, in the mosaics of Roman and Ravenna churches, in the carved frames of diptychs of the 10th–11th centuries and in miniature painting of the entire medieval period. Another example: the general technique of depicting saints in vestments was given long before the appearance of handwritten originals, for example, in images of saints and mosaics of the Sophia of Constantinople, then in miniatures of the menologies of Emperor Basil, and finally, in wall paintings of the most ancient Russian churches. In this regard, the foundations of the original were laid in the traditions of ancient Christian art and anticipated by their appearance the well-known decree of the Council of Nicaea, but they anticipated, we repeat, not in the sense of prescriptions or, even less, a disciplinary act, but in the sense of more solid and stable subjects of general art. When did the first written rules appear regarding how to depict this or that iconographic subject, or, what is also the same, at what time did an intelligent Greek original appear? – The compilers of Russian originals attributed its beginning to the era of Justinian. But if this is true regarding the general foundations of Byzantine-Russian iconography, then it cannot be considered true regarding the original, as an integral theoretical system of icon painting. The time of Justinian was a time of progress and creative freedom in Byzantine art; the latter had not yet had time to develop all the necessary aspects of icon painting, while the original represents, as we will see below, the final act of creativity and already legitimizes the principle of immobility in the field of church art. The earliest example of a Greek original has survived to us in a passage “from the antiquities of church history by Ulpius the Roman about the appearance of the God-bearing fathers.” This passage, marked 993, is found in one of the manuscripts of the Moscow Synodal Library and presents a description of the appearance of some of the most famous church fathers, for example, Dionysius the Areopagite, Athanasius of Alexandria, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom and others. The descriptions are drawn up with the greatest detail and in many ways resemble Lentulov’s famous description of the face of Christ, with the difference, however, that they do not contain any reviews or morality, but constitute a portrait of each face outlined to the smallest detail, where neither the size of the nose, nor the length of the beard, nor the degree of baldness, nor other subtleties of the same property are forgotten. Here is a description of Chrysostom’s appearance: “John of Antioch was very small in stature, had a large head on his shoulders, and was extremely thin. He had a long nose, wide nostrils, a pale yellow complexion, sunken, large eyes, at times glowing with friendliness, an open and large forehead, riddled with many wrinkles, large ears, a small, very sparse, gray beard.” It is clear that the description was made from life and compiled by someone shortly after the death of the saint based on his living appearance... An excerpt from the Ulpian story belongs to the category of those literary monuments where legends about the appearance of the most remarkable church figures were first collected and recorded. These legends were based partly in the biographies of saints, partly in oral stories and memories of persons who stood in close relationships with them. At the beginning, these records did not have the systematic form with which they appeared in the original codex, but they formed a necessary part, or better yet, an addition to the biographical and historical information about a given person; but then they were collected into one composition and served as an indication for painters how and in what form to depict this or that saint. As soon as such records appeared, they began to be supplemented from time to time by facial, that is, drawn picturesque images of the mentioned persons and events. The so-called menology of the Greek Emperor Basil II, who lived at the end of the 10th and beginning of the 11th centuries, can give a clear idea of ​​this type of monument. For each biography of a saint, which follows one after another in calendar order in this remarkable manuscript, there is a painted miniature, occupying half of the blank sheet of text. The drawings, 480 in number, executed on a golden field by the best artistic forces of Byzantium, are precious both for the history of everyday life and church life of that time, and in terms of art. For us, in this case, the miniatures of Vasily’s menology are important in terms of their significance in the history of the formation of the iconographic original, since they, containing a relatively complete cycle of iconographic subjects, served for a long time as competent models for later painters. However, the images of the manuscript in question do not claim to give one or another type artistic and ecclesiastical sanction; containing all the necessary inclinations of a facial original, they, however, do not constitute a guide to icon painting in the strict sense of the word; the significant volume and at the same time the relative incompleteness of the content do not allow the facial menology of Emperor Basil to become one of the iconographic originals. A complete and systematically compiled codex of the Greek original has reached us in a copy of a very late date, namely the 18th century. and has the following name: ἑρμηνεία τῆς ζωγραφικῆς or instruction in the art of painting 2. The origin and fate of the list we named are closely connected with Athos and the local icon painting schools. Since the decline of the political life of Byzantium, Athos became the guardian of its church traditions, a closed corner where neither the influence of the West, nor political unrest, nor church innovations entered. It is known that the foundation of communal Athonite monasteries began in the 8th–9th centuries. and soon, thanks to the rapid colonization of this secluded place, an entire monastic community with many monasteries and hermitages, churches and cells was formed on Athos. Since then, strict church art, which by that time had lost much in Byzantium, found refuge in St. mountain, where back in the 11th century. According to legend, it should be noted that it is very vague, there lived a certain famous painter Manuel Panselin - a semi-historical figure who left behind a very loud fame on Athos, but unfortunately, too little information about his origin, about the circumstances of his life and his works. According to a later legend, “he, like a radiant sun, shone in Thessaloniki and, shining with the rays of pictorial art, like a certain sun and a luminous moon, surpassed and eclipsed all ancient and modern painters.” In this enthusiastic praise, one can hear, by the way, an allusion to the very name of the isographer: πανσέληνος - completely moon-shaped. The glorious painter was not left without successors; After his death, the Athonite monks with special love and great care sought out the works of Manuel’s brush and imitated them as examples of unattainable perfection, and the more talented and devoted to their work began, over time, to make known and record the iconographic traditions that Panselin and other eminent iconographers adhered to. So, at the beginning of the 18th century. was compiled by Dionysius, a painter and hieromonk from Fourna, which we called a guide to the art of painting. In order to more clearly imagine the Greek icon painting original and then more accurately evaluate its significance in the history of church painting, let us get acquainted with the content and character of Erminius Dionysius. Divided by the compiler into three parts, it begins with an introduction, depicting before us the Byzantine icon painter’s view of his profession, as an occupation sanctified by the church, as a well-known branch of religious work, venerable in its purpose. Dedicating his book to the Mother of God, Dionysius says that he imitates the Evangelist Luke, fulfills the duty of reverence for the greatness and wondrous beauty of the Mother of God, and in the end is confident that both her and the Creator of everything will be pleasing and favorable to his work. After the preface, written with humility, but not without a sense of self-esteem, there follows the first part, in which instructions are given on how to prepare paints and varnishes, how to put blush on the lips of the Mother of God and saints who were not old, how to draw eyes and eyebrows, how to trim hair and beards... “In order to give a better look to the latter, we read in the treatise of Dionysius on the latter, stretch the hairs beyond the end of them, but not far. Then make liquid white and subtly lighten your hair with it. To shade the mustache, use pure black paint..., and for the lips, a reddish flesh color."... The caring and prudent teacher did not leave his students in the dark regarding natural painting; he gave them in his manual rules about the size of the members of the human body, borrowing them, however, as we will now see, not from observations of nature. “Know, my student,” writes Dionysius, that the natural growth of a person from forehead to sole is measured in nine balls or by measures. First, measure the head, dividing it into three parts; in the first of them place the forehead, in the second the nose, and in the third, write the hair beyond the line of this egg, in addition to this, from the nose to the end of the beard, measure three equal parts, of which two will form the beard, and one of the mouth. Then measure three equal parts from the chin to the middle of the body and two equal parts to the knees, adding a part equal to the nose to the knees. Next, measure two more parts to the ankles and from them a part equal to the nose, to the sole, and one part to the nails... As for the eyes, their size is the same and the distance between them is as long as the eye is long... The length of the ear is equal to the length of the nose. If a person is drawn naked, then the middle of his breadth is determined by four noses, and if in clothes - by one and a half eggs "... This conventional character of the Greek iconographic original is no less evident in the second part of the manual for painting. Arranged by Dionysius in the order of biblical and church-historical events, it begins with the image of the angelic ranks and the fall of Satan, embraces the entire history of the Old and New Testaments, and ends with a description of the paintings symbolic-allegorical content; in a word, in a single essay it presents a detailed list of subjects of Christian iconography and, by the nature of its content, can be called iconographic in the full sense. What method does the management follow when conveying iconographic subjects? It presents us with Greek painting in the later period of its development and in many ways deviates not only from the examples of ancient Christian painting in the catacombs, on sarcophagi and mosaics, but even differs from later miniatures. The compiler often does not start from ready-made examples of ancient painting, but stands on the basis of a historical story, supplementing it in places with apocryphal details and, in general, tries to present a more or less detailed picture and circumstances of a famous event. Such additions are sometimes allowed into a biblical story in order to enliven a simple historical picture and give it a picturesque setting and lighting. It is necessary, for example. To depict the murder of Abel and the crying of Adam and Eve over their son - a new feature is added to the biblical story in the image of an angel who hovers over Adam’s head and holds a scroll with the inscription: “do not cry, for you will rise on the last day.” In the depiction of the flight of St. families in Egypt, the picture is complemented by the view of the city and idols falling from its walls, referring to the well-known legend that the presence of Jesus Christ in Egypt was marked by the fall of idols. Traces of theological considerations are visible in places and dogmatic parallels are drawn in the spirit of church interpretation. This is for example the convergence of the confusion of tongues during the pandemonium and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles in the form of tongues of fire - a rapprochement carried out on the basis of the dogmatic relationship between these two events in the meaning of the church song: “whenever it descended, the tongues merged” ... Thus, Moses’ vision of the burning bush is depicted in a typological sense, as a prototype of the ever-virginity of the Mother of God, which is why the image of the Mother of God is placed in the middle of the burning bush. There are even traces of mythological ideas and classical language, which is especially noticeable in paintings with allegorical content, such as. the life of a true monk, a depiction of the ages of human life. Cupid is depicted here, angels are represented as ancient geniuses, and hell is called by the classical name of Tartarus. The same, for example, is the image of Jordan in the form of an old man who, turning his face back, looks with fear at Christ who entered the water for baptism, while he himself pours water from a vessel. This picture, according to the meaning of the original, should depict the Jordan “returning”... One involuntarily recalls the ancient frescoes and Ravenna mosaics, and even earlier, one episode from the Iliad, where the Scamander River chases one of the heroes of the epic. This convention of leadership is felt even more strongly in the department of parables, the form for which is the everyday and social phenomena of later times, and the parables themselves are depicted not from the point of view of their content, but from the side of the internal meaning and the morality contained in them. Thus, in the parable of the sower, the painter does not depict before the viewer either a field, a farmer, or a crop, but depicts Christ preaching and four groups of his listeners in positions corresponding to the explanation of the tributary story. Some talk among themselves and are whispered by the devil, and do not listen to Christ at all; others, although they listen, leave Christ in view of the idols to which soldiers with drawn swords force them to go; still others sit at luxurious tables in the company of cheerful women and forget what they heard; finally, the fourth, a select circle of listeners on whom the word of Christ falls like grain on good soil, are represented in the form of monks flagellating themselves, serving priests and people praying in church. However, the image here is still clear; but now it is necessary to depict in the faces the words: “you are the light of the world,” and the leadership represents the bishop in vestments before the people in the church, and above him Christ, holding a scroll with the words that are illustrated here. In depicting the parable of the mustard seed, the author resorts to an extremely unsuccessful illustration technique, depicting a tree growing from the Savior’s mouth, on whose branches instead of birds sit the apostles, on whom the eyes of the people are turned. In view of these naive illustrations, you don’t know what to give preference to: these awkward experiments or a simple awareness of artistic impotence in the form of a simple scroll with the words of a parable without any accessories. However, the thought that underlies this dogmatic depiction of parables also has its good side and reveals a kind of artistic tact. The tributary image, presented in outline and colors, is something else, this allegorical picture in its verbal form, in the form of a tributary story. Transfer the latter to canvas, and it will not have the transparency, ease and accessibility of understanding that it has in the parable. What will emerge is a landscape, a genre picture, a sensual appearance of an object, in which the inner meaning of the parable either escapes without explanation, or is roughly obscured by the outlines of the real object and recedes into the background. For moralizing purposes, the techniques of the original are undoubtedly much better suited, but artistically they are very insufficient and one-sided. The third part of the manual contains rules regarding the placement of icons in the church, that is, how to paint the inside of the church with wall paintings. It must be borne in mind that wherever the original speaks about church painting, it means mural painting itself, and not icons on boards, and does not mention a word about the iconostasis. This latter undoubtedly already existed then, albeit on a small scale, but is not mentioned in the original once, because the manual for painting refers to mural painting, and then, in its foundations, the original goes back to the time when nothing was known about the iconostasis. The tiers of the latter were formed by analogy with the placement of mural painting and began to correspond to the belts on which wall painting was made from the ceiling to the floor of the church. The first images in churches began at the altar and were grouped on the altar ledge; then they began to decorate the dome and its vaults with mosaics and paints; Next to this is the painting of the church on the walls and porch. The Athonite original takes the dome as the starting point for placing icons and, gradually descending from it, thus divides the interior of the church in horizontal rows into five belts, from which each is assigned a special circle of images. The dome contains an image of Christ the Pantocrator in a multi-colored halo, representing a rainbow - for the symbolism of the dome in the sense of the sky, this circumstance is very remarkable; Christ is depicted with the gospel and a blessing hand; On His sides is the Mother of God with the Forerunner in prayer, i.e. an image of the Deesis. In a neck or drum under the dome there is a row of prophets; even lower in the corners, between the pillars supporting the dome, in the so-called pandaktivs, there are four evangelists. Actually, the first row of the mural begins at the base of the dome with the altar vault or apse, on which is placed the image of the Mother of God enthroned with the infant Christ and the inscription: μητὴρ θεοῦ ὑψιλοτέρα τῶν οὐρανῶν. Again an allusion to the symbolic meaning of the altar vault in the sense of the sky. She is even more supported by the archangels Michael and Gabriel who stand before the Mother of God. In ancient Christian murals, various images were placed above the mountain place: a cross, Christ, the Mother of God, an image of a holiday and a saint to whom the church is dedicated, but over time, in the Byzantine period, all these subjects begin to give way to the image of the Mother of God, and in Athonite painting this place becomes Her integral. – From her, on both sides of the church, the original designates to depict the 12 main holidays, the suffering and resurrection of Christ. The second row begins from the side of the altar with the image of the Divine Liturgy; here the main images of liturgical content related to the Eucharist are concentrated. What is the divine liturgy as an iconographic plot? The Divine Liturgy is a symbolic reproduction of the great entrance to the liturgy, and the performers of this rite are Christ and the angels. But I will not convey it in my own words, but will present it as it is written in the original: “on the eastern side of the altar a canopy is drawn, and under it a throne with the gospel lying on it; On the right side of the throne stands Christ in bishop's vestments and blesses. Near him is a whole row of angels who form a circle near the throne, ending at the left side of the throne, where Christ is depicted a second time and removes the paten from the head of an angel dressed in a deacon's vestment. Two angels cense Christ and two hold candles; Angels in priestly robes stand right there and hold a chalice, a cross, a spear, a spoon, and a sponge.” A continuation of this image on the sides of the church are paintings from the gospel story and the miracles of Christ. The third row begins from the side of the altar with an equally original image of liturgical content, known as “the distribution of the body and blood of Christ - μετάδοσις”. This is nothing more than a Byzantine type of depiction of the Last Supper, very curious in terms of artistic techniques and its significance in the history of art. In catacomb painting there is no image of the Last Supper, but there are images of family tables, where the participants in the meal are represented in greater or lesser numbers. Then the ancient method began to be applied to images of Christian agapes, and at the same time hints were made of the Last Supper of Christ. The earliest known image of the Last Supper was preserved in the Rivne Basilica of Apollinaris Nuovo of the 7th century. and in miniatures of the Rossan Codex of the Four Gospels. From here the Western image of the Last Supper was developed, an example of which is the famous image of the Last Supper by Leonardo Vinci, which passed into Eastern iconography. The Byzantine translation of this story presents the Last Supper in a liturgical picture. Christ is depicted at the moment of distributing bread and a cup to the apostles, near the throne, in two paintings on the right and left sides; on one he stands teaching the cup to the appropriate six apostles, on the other he distributes bread to the same number of disciples. In earlier images there is neither a chalice nor a paten, but Christ is represented with bread, from which he breaks off a piece to give to a suitable apostle, and instead of a chalice, he holds in his hand either a deep cup, like the present bowl, or a jug with a handle, and from it he communes with the apostles. This is how the sacrament was taught in the ancient church, and Byzantine images of the Last Supper reproduce before us the most ancient era of church practice. As an interesting feature that took place in the official and church life of Byzantium, one can point out that the apostles approach the throne with outstretched hands, wrapped in an outer cloak. This signifies deep respect for the object being received and the person giving it; so eg The courtiers received charters from the hands of the emperor and handed over some objects to him. This plot is very often depicted in the mosaics of Greek churches, and from here it came to us and is found in our ancient churches on a mountainous place, for example. in the Kiev St. Sophia and Kiev St. Michael's Cathedrals. The Greek original of Dionysius adds to this the following curious detail. Behind the apostles approaching the cup, Judas is represented, turning back; his mouth is twisted and a demon enters it. This figure is not present in the images known to us, and it would be extremely inconvenient to place the figure of a demon in such a place and among such a solemn atmosphere. The fourth row contains icons of various saints. The altar depicts saints, on the sides are martyrs and saints, and on the western side are pagan poets. The fifth and last row is of different saints. Having given instructions to the painter regarding the main part of the church, the painting manual leads him to the vestibule and gives instructions on how to paint this part, the meal, the fountain in the courtyard and then shows how to paint the church when it is built in the domed or basilica style. After all that has been said about the content and nature of the instruction in the pictorial art of Dionysius Furnoagrafiot, it seems that there is no need to dwell too much on the benefits that the church authorities derived from such control over the activities of icon painters, as well as on the harmful consequences that the appearance of the original icon painting should have accompanied for church art. Suffice it to say that church painting in the east throughout the Middle Ages went hand in hand with the rules of the original and, under the influence of the latter, its direction was determined. Almost at the end of the 11th century. The independent development of iconography in the Byzantine Empire had already ceased, and everything that it produced in the following centuries was nothing more than a pale variation on an old theme. Pushed into the narrow frame of the original, limited to exclusively ecclesiastical tasks, art was satisfied with a ready-made and minutely developed circle of images, beyond which it did not go and did not want to go due to the narrow requirements that were placed on it. A certain number of favorite subjects were adopted to figuratively represent the biblical text and church historical events; a number of ready-made types served to depict Christ, the apostles and saints. These are not figures in the strict sense of an artistic image, but rather their diagrams, not the human bodies themselves, but their monotonous appearances, in which the art of that time sought to convey the expression of something sublime, spiritual, unearthly. This is the feature in which the faces of saints should differ from the appearance of mere mortals, according to the meaning of the requirements of the original. The original tried to replace this lack of artistic typicality and expressiveness with conventional attributes, accepted once and for all to characterize a certain gender, age, rank and position. This is precisely the reason why, for example, the angelic face in works of Byzantine art is always distinguished by curly hair that curls over the shoulders, ceremonial clothing with accessories of courtiers-bodyguards; the saints are depicted with short, mostly gray hair on their heads, with a well-developed beard, wearing a phelonion, from under which one hand blesses and the other holds the gospel; all pious wives are like St. Anna, and young women - to the Mother of God; the type of Joseph serves as a model for representing pious men... But remaining completely external signs, these attributes explained the matter no more than a sign or an inscription. Even the Byzantine types themselves, for the most part, lost their positive character in icon painting and, changing under the influence of time and the tribal varieties that made up the Byzantine Empire at different times, took on a conventional and monotonous imprint, which is constantly repeated, but never rises to national typicality. Its most outstanding features can be conveyed in the following features: high stature coupled with an unusually thin figure, small and very flaccid extremities, a small head on a long thin neck, a wide and low forehead, a narrow nose with two deep grooves on the sides and a strongly protruding chin; large sunken eyes and an overhanging frontal bone, due to the dark orange color of the body, exhausted by the labors and deprivations of the free feat of salvation, give the face an expression of concentration and gloomy gloominess. In young faces, fullness turns into swelling, and in older ones, thinness and general dryness of the body appear, leading to asceticism. In this appearance, common to every physiognomy, we have not a tribal type, not an expression of the dominant taste or aesthetic concepts, but a conventional combination of features that make up the ecclesiastical beauty and splendor of the face that is looked at in church and taught. Trial lecture given 1887, Sept. 7 days for students Moscow. D. Academy, in the presence of members of the Academic Council. Published in Trud. K.D. Academy for 1868, translated from Greek by A.P. You might be interested in: