The Role of Stained Glass in the Sacred Visual Semiosis of Religious Buildings in Crimea

Abstract

The subject of the study is the role of stained glass in the visual semiosis of religious buildings in Crimea. The object of the study is the stained glass decor of the sacred architecture of the Crimea. The research uses the methods of cultural (hermeneutic and semiotic) and artistic (idiographic and structural) analysis of stained glass art in the sacred space of Crimean architecture, the method of analysis of previous studies, the method of synthesis in conclusions regarding the development of stained glass in the Crimean cult architecture. In the study, the authors considered the following areas of the topic: the development of stained glass art of the Crimea in sacred architecture; the meaning of color and subject symbols in stained glass compositions of religious buildings of the Crimea. The main conclusions of the study are: 1. Stained glass art, more precisely, its subject component, is not authentic for the Crimea, it appears in the decor of residential and public buildings during the late XIX century, the beginning of the eclecticism of Art Nouveau and imitation of Gothic and Byzantine models. Colored glass in earlier periods decorated the windows of well-to-do houses of representatives of various Crimean ethnic groups, however, stained glass as a phenomenon was not characteristic of sacred structures. 2. Due to its geographical location, Crimea is a multicultural and multi-confessional territory, where various religious trends developed: ancient pantheism, Byzantine Orthodox Christianity, Catholicism and Protestantism with the colonization of Catherine's time, Islam, Ashkenazi and Sephardic Judaism. Stained glass windows in religious buildings of various faiths, in addition to decorative function, play a symbolic role, conveying through color, symbolism of abstract and object forms one or another sacred meaning. 3. A special contribution of the authors to the study of the topic is the cataloging, art history and cultural description of examples of stained glass art in the sacred architecture of the Crimea. The scientific novelty of the study is that the authors for the first time carry out an ontological analysis of stained glass art in the sacred visual semiosis of the Crimea and analyze its semiotic aspects.