Celestial Etymology

As a recent discourse happily brought us to matters of the firmament, it seems a fitting moment to dwell upon another exhibition recently visited in Moscow: Freedom and the Wilderness: From Kenozero to Pomorye. Among the eight hundred artifacts brought to the capital by the Kenozero National Park, the absolute jewels of the collection were the nebesa—magnificent, tent-shaped painted wooden ceilings harvested from the remote wooden chapels of the Russian North.

The Roots of Moisture

Before one surrenders to the contemplation of these northern masterpieces, a brief etymological diversion is in order.

The Russian word for sky, nebo, traces its lineage back to the Proto-Balto-Slavic *nébas, which in turn emerges from the Proto-Indo-European root *nebʰ-, inextricably bound up with moisture, fog, and clouds. It is a wonderfully revealing glimpse into the climatological disposition of our ancestors, who chose to designate the heavens above by a root signifying dampness down below.

From this same fertile source flow several more familiar terms:

• German Nebel and Latin nebula, both denoting mist or cloudiness;
• Ancient Greek aphrós (‘foam’), which gave us she who was born of it—Aphrodite;
• Persian nam and Turkish nem, signifying humidity; and
• Neptune, whose name is likewise believed by scholars to enshrine the Proto-Italic *nebʰ-tu-s, ascending to the identical watery source.

Man-Made Firmaments

Such are the unexpected vistas opened by a bit of comparative philology. But now, let us simply admire the handiwork of these man-made heavens.

The earliest ceiling in the Kenozero collection had been painted over during the Soviet era and was painstakingly restored by the Grabar Centre only a few years ago. Thanks to the meticulous care of the restorers, we can now appreciate a motif exceptionally rare in Kenozero: cherubim amidst clouds, presided over by a blessing Sabaoth at the centre. Restorers affectionately dubbed it the “Lekshmozero Leonardo” due to the striking stylistic kinship between the faces and da Vinci’s sketches.

This is the sole “heaven” in the Russian North executed on a gold ground, and it remains among the most intricate in iconographic design. One suspects the artist enjoyed some form of formal academic training, as lingering echoes of late classicism ripple through the brushwork.

This particular ceiling is remarkable for its fifteen-sided geometry. As a rule, the facet count of these structures is a neat multiple of four; here, however, in order to gracefully accommodate the Crucifixion scene, the builders made the bold architectural choice of fusing two facets into one.

Gazing upward at these painted wooden vaults, one realises that the inhabitants of the Kenozero region were not merely building houses of worship—they were pioneering an early, immersive form of 3D religious art. For this observer, at least, these northern nebesa succeeded in lifting one straight to cloud nine, offering a most delightful union of linguistic curiosity and art-historical rapture.