The Image of the Orthodox Clergy in Russian Genre Painting of the 19th and Early 20th Century

Abstract

The article traces the transformation of the artistic public's view on the clergy and their place in the life of Russia on the basis of the images of priests created by domestic masters of the genre in the 19th – early 20th centuries. Genre painting originated in Russia in the second quarter of the 19th century and allowed artists to move away from symbolic academic themes and turn to subjects from the everyday life of their contemporaries. However, as a rule, there was no place for the clergy in those works. The exception was the work of A.G. Venetsianov, who was at the root of the creation of genre painting in Russia. In the period of liberal reforms, the church was viewed as something reactionary and clergy was often portrayed in sharply satirical or comic situations (V.G. Perov, F.S. Zhuravlev). In the post-reform period and with the development of realistic worldview, the images of the priest lost their comic focus on the canvases of K.A. Savitsky, G.G. Myasoedov and I.E. Repin. Late 19th and early 20th centuries for the Russian culture was the period of searching spirituality and coming to understand approaching social upheavals in Russian culture, which was clearly demonstrated by M.V. Nesterov's turn to depicting the image of a priest. His disciple P.D. Korin, who witnessed active persecution of the church in the early 1920s, emphasized in his famous, but unfinished portraits of priests the heroic resistance of the clergy to impending persecution. It is important to say that after decades the artist did not get back to the unfinished canvas, since the situation in the country changed, and the genre of the painting changed to historical.