The Brief History of Iconography

Iconography has always been a full-fledged niche of the art world. The history of iconography is vast and deep as well, and it will take days to tell you about its significant moments and the most important figures and dates. Instead, we offer you a short excursus to its history in order to give a feel for the historical development of this well-known form of religious art.

Many people tend to think that icons (images) stem from Ancient Rus, which is quite a debatable assumption. According to the official data, the birthplace of religious icons is Byzantium where some of the oldest pieces were found. The scientists have managed to find not many works from that period though; the reason for that is Byzantine Iconoclasm. The name refers to the two periods in the history of empire (8th and 9th centuries) when the use of icons was forbidden, and all those, who did not want to comply with such rules, were victimized.

The end of Byzantine Iconoclasm was a victory for all religious people, which led to the spread of iconographic art worldwide. In the 10th century, the art of icon painting appeared in Ancient Rus, where it flourished with all its might. From that moment on, the ancient craft would only grow and become more popular among people around the globe.

Old Russian icons are the perfect mastery of iconographic art since they are believed to have surpassed Byzantine icons with their visual richness and exceptional style. The most prominent figure of Russian icon painting was Andrei Rublev, who made a slew of influential works. Besides, there were many notable icon-painting schools that highly added to the development of the craft throughout its history.

Today, we mostly reap the fruits of the past because many of the historic icon-painting schools have long gone. The only thing that remains is to preserve the beauty and the deep context of antique religious icons and pass them to the next generations.