souls on a tree

[Jack Kollmann]

Dear Valery,

         I wonder if you have in mind the icon of "The Vladimir Mother of 
God and the Planting of the Tree of the Russian State," by Simon Ushakov, 
1668, Tret'iakov Gallery.  In the upper center of a large tree stemming 
from the Moscow Kremlin is Ushakov's representation of the 12-century icon 
of the "Vladimir Mother of God," Moscow's palladium icon.  In the branches 
of the tree are medallions in which are depicted twenty major figures in 
the history of Muscovite Russia:  sainted princes (going back to Aleksandr 
Nevskii), metropolitans, patriarchs, holy fools, monk saints, etc., all 
turning reverently towards the image of the Vladimir Mother of God.  In 
their hands they are holding scrolls containing the verses of the 
Acathistus (Akafist) Hymn to the Mother of God.  From Heaven -- above the 
clouds at top center of the scene -- is Christ, who hands a robe and crown 
down to angels, the items presumably intended for the Muscovite tsars (the 
robe is spread over the center of the scene rather like the Virgin's 
protective robe spreads over the congregation in a "Pokrov" icon -- 
Intercession, or Protection of the Virgin). At the bottom part of the scene 
the base of the tree, springing from the Dormition Cathedral inside the red 
brick Kremlin walls, is being watered and tended (planted) by 14th-century 
Metropolitan Petr and Prince Ivan Danilovich Kalita; to the left behind the 
Kremlin walls is the then (1668) living Tsar, Aleksei Mikhailovich, and to 
the right his first wife, Mariia Il'inichna Miloslavskaia with sons Aleksei 
Alekseevich and Fedor Alekseevich.  Behind the obvious political ideas of 
the icon are such antecedents as the Tree of Jesse (ancestry of Jesus; cf. 
Isaiah & Luke) and references in the Akafist to the Virgin Mary as "divine 
tree."

         If this doesn't correspond to what you were trying visually to 
remember, give us some more details if you can.  The icon by Ushakov is 
published in numerous albums of Russian/Muscovite icons.  Figures in the 
medallions are identified in, among other publications, V.I Antonova and 
N.E. Mneva, "Katalog drevnerusskoi zhivopisi," tom 2, Moskva: Iskusstvo, 
1963, str. 411-413.

Jack Kollmann



At 12:25 AM 4/15/03 -0400, you wrote:
>I remember the image ­ it might be a Rissian icon ­ souls (“cherubims”)
>sitting on branches of the tree. I found nothing similar at the excellent
>site recently prompted on this list:  http://www.wco.ru/icons. Perhaps, the
>non-verbal memory of my colleagues may suggest more?
>
>Valery Merlin
>merlin at h2.hum.huji.ac.il

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