Valaam Monastery School of Painting

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the formation of Valaam’s own school of painting for monks and novices of the monastery. This process consisted of several stages connected to both the historical development of the monastery itself, as well as the expanding influence of the Russian Imperial Academy of Arts. The official establishment of the painting school, which trained artists according to academic methods, dates back to the late 19th – early 20th centuries. The entire preceding history of the monastery paved the way for the inauguration of the school. In particular, the monastery gathered a carefully selected collection of engravings and reproductions of famous religious paintings, art manuals, human anatomy atlases and picturesque copies of popular works of art. Construction of the new Transfiguration Cathedral, to be supposedly painted by monastery artists, provided the main impetus for the eventual opening of the school. Gifted Valaam monks Alipiy (Konstantinov) and Luka (Bogdanov), as well as a student of the Russian Academy of Arts, V. A. Bondarenko, taught at the monastery’s school. Among some of the most diligent students of the school were hegumen Gavrill (Gavrilov), the main proponent of its establishment and its trustee, along with monk Fotiy (Yablokov), the future head of the icon painting workshop. The school continued to operate until the monks of the Valaam Monastery were forced to flee to Finland as a result of hostilities that broke out in the archipelago during the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939–1940.