Inscrutable, as we are so frequently reminded, are the ways of Providence. Having duly paid homage to the peerless craftsmanship of the Negliubka weavers, I found it quite impossible to bypass another exhibition lurking conveniently in the adjacent hall. Under the joint auspices of the Novgorod Museum Reserve and the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus, an exhibition had been assembled bearing the rather stately title: Five Centuries of Marian Veneration: Reversed Perspective. From the 18th to the 14th Century. And would you believe it? Veliky Novgorod happened to be precisely my next port of call upon leaving Minsk. Coincidence? I think not.
For Minsk itself, the choice of theme was by no means accidental either; the city’s coat of arms—bestowed upon it by Sigismund III Vasa along with its Magdeburg rights—proudly features the Assumption of the Virgin.
The exhibition’s curators, one must assume after much wrestling with their conscience and catalogue space, endeavoured:
…to show Belarusian and Novgorod icon masterpieces in the reversed chronological order. Within the framework of the exhibition, “reverse perspective” is revealed not so much as a theological idea, so polemically and poetically expounded by Father Pavel Florensky, as a movement against time, away from the baroque extravagances (and quirks) of Belarusian and Novgorod icons of the 18th century toward the golden age of Russian icon painting of the 14th–15th centuries.
Yet, arrange the gallery walls however the museum staff please, the confrontation of eras and the clash of chronologies refuse to be banished. What one man reveres as a “golden age” does not invariably command the unreserved devotion of the seasoned traveller whose constitutional scepticism has been burnished by too many provincial galleries. Besides, to tell the truth, that golden age of theirs leaves me remarkably cold. One can have too much of a good thing, and I have seen quite enough of it to last a lifetime. Those “extravagances and quirks,” on the other hand—to borrow the charming phrase of the Minsk curators—are vastly more to my taste.
Faces & Canon: The Novgorod Perspective
Just cast an eye over these Novgorod specimens:
Observe their countenances. While the third and oldest of the trio still clings manfully to the stern constraints of Byzantine lineage, the faces on the second begin to wear a distinctly familiar look. By the time one reaches the first, the holy figures have become thoroughly humanised, evoking not merely the frozen, statuesque awe proper to the devout, but a genuine, flesh-and-blood empathy with the earthly tribulations of Christ.
The Belarusian Context: Empathy Preceding Canon
And here, by way of delightful contrast, are the icons of Belarus:
Inscriptions in Greek and Church Slavonic hint that these panels were originally commissioned for Orthodox or Uniate sanctuaries, yet their artistic idiom is unmistakably Western. While preserving the customary architectural backgrounds, verdant landscapes, ritual poses, and sumptuous vestments, the Belarusian painters performed a quiet miracle: they endowed their faces with life. The degree of technical mastery may fluctuate from one village brush to the next, but the emotional resonance is beyond dispute. One does not merely gaze upon distant historical protagonists; one reads their features, shares their unspoken griefs, and keeps them company.
There is no forced dichotomy here, no tedious dualism or black-and-white dogmatism. It is simply a historical and geographical retrospection of a sacred narrative—a story that belongs to us all, transforming the museum from a chilly mausoleum of antiquities into a remarkably civilised venue for conversation.
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