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Issues of 2008
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The wonder of the rostov painted enamels
Enameling art was of particular interest since the ancient times due to the longevity, shine and bright pure colors of the enamels. The word «finift» stems from the Greek word «phingitis» that means «a light-colored shining stone». The glassy substance of various colors was brought to the Russia of the Kiev period from Byzantium. Two main kinds of the cloisonne and champleve enamels were mostly popular at that time. Painting with enamel paints on enamel («Limoges») was named after the town in France where it was invented, mainly it is the technique of «painting» with the special enamel called «blanc de limoges» on dark enamelled surface forming a detailed picture, often a human figure. This is a form of the Grisaille monochromic painting. The Limoges enamels were produced in the medieval France since the middle of the 8th century and became widespread especially in its Grisaille form in the 16th — 17th centuries. In Russia, the painted enamel emerged in the late 17th century. At first, in the northern towns of Usolye Sibirskoye and Solvychegodsk the painted enamel dishes were produced. The introduction of the miniature portraits of the nobles being painted on enamels is connected with the name of Peter the Great, who used his portraits as a kind of state decoration. In that period a lot of enamel miniatures were produced in the Moscow Kremlin Armory and were ordered by various foreign craftsmen.
The miniature painting on enamel is a rather complex technique and requires an artistic talent of high grade in combination with the possession of certain technical skills. It was fully mastered by the Russian craftsmen only in the 18th century. The first workshop working in the miniature painting on enamel in the Rostov region was established in the 70-ies of the 18th century. The number of such workshops and masters of enamel painting executing orders from local churches and monasteries grew. In the late 80-s, early 90-s of the 18th century, the Rostov craftsmen were united in a special department of the church enamel icons and painting art. The Baroque style played the decisive role in the formation of the character of the Rostov painted enamels, which absorbed also the icon painting and folklore traditions. The masters of the Rostov school based their works on the examples of the West-European religious and historic art (themes, composition, stylistic features). This is the main difference between their works and the works of the craftsmen from the Moscow Kremlin Armory, who based their works on the tempera painting of icons with their characteristic schematic style. The early works of the Rostov school survived in form of the individual miniature icons and various plaques being the elements of crosses and «panagias», as well as in the form of «drobnitza» plaques of various items of the orthodox religion church service including the «Mitre» hats of mitropolites. These drobnitza¬plaques are of particular interest, because their size and meaning made them ideal objects for creation of enamel painting miniatures. «Drobnitza» comprise small icons of the oval or rectangular form meant for decoration of various church service items, such as gala Gospel-books, icon settings, clothes of clergymen, wedding crowns, Eucharistic vessels, etc. They were produced from various precious materials using various jewelry techniques including the one of «finift», i.e. painting on enamel. «Mitre» is a special high hat of high ranked priests with a bulbous rounded top, often covered with golden lace embroidery and bearing particular religion emblems. It symbolizes the Crown of Thorns of Jesus and the special power conferred to his servants. It is worn by the higher priests in course of the liturgy.
That’s why they were made of expensive silk and velvet fabrics and luxuriously decorated with embroidery of gold and silver laces, with pearls and precious gems. The sides of the «Mitre» hats were usually decorated with painted enamel drobnitza-plaques bearing the images of saints and scenes from Gospels. The shining splendor of these gala hats perfectly matched the luxurious style of the Russian Baroque church of the 18th century. The finift-painted light colored drobnitza looked like heavenly clouds on such shining background of pearls and precious stones. The period of the peak in the development of the Russian miniature portrait corresponds to the maximal heights in the development of the art of the Rostov enamel painting. Though the Rostov enamellers not always signed their works, some of their names survived: Elshin, Burov, Tarasov, Stavotinsky, Tchainikov, Petrov, etc. The most famous artists were Amphilohiy and Alexey Ignatievich Vsesvyatsky. Amphilohiy, who in the secular life bore the name of Alexander Moshchansky (1748–1824) — was an icon painter, specialist in enamel painting, a monk of the Spaso-Yakovlevsky Dmitriev Rostovsky Monastery. The works by Amphilohiy are characterized by emotional character of images, their plastic depicted with great skill, and by very bright colors. Also he was distinguished by high-class backstage painting (both landscape and architectural themes). Alexey Ignatievich Vsesvyatsky (1762–1831), as nearly all the masters of the Rostov school, was a priest of one of the Rostov churches. Most of his works stem from the 90-s of the 18th century. He is a big master of light colors including the wide use of white color enamel. Often he used the traditional bright and gay popular colors of Baroque, those of purple, green and yellow. In late 18th century, Dmitry Rostovsky was a newly canonized and especialy honored saint. So a lot of panagias, pectoral crosses and drobnitza-plaques with the image of the saint was produced, and of course the major part of them were fabricated in the town of Rostov by the local finift craftsmen. he Mineya of August painted enamel plate, which was usually put in front of the communion table in the church during the service. It is a good example of the craftsmanship of the Rostov scool of painted enamels Later, in the 19th century, the masters of Rostov Velikiy (Rostov the Great) started the mass production of the finift enamel icons (up to 2 mln pcs/year). Of course, this led to deterioration of quality and loosing the status of singular masterpieces by the Rostov enamels. The times when the beautiful finift plaques were valued at the same level with precious stones were gone forever. The fabrication of artistic enamels of the secular character was preserved after the revolution in the Soviet epoch. However, its quality was not very high. In the recent years, the production of enamels of religious character was revived in Rostov again together with strengthening of the role and position of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Russian Church Life. For example, in 2002, the masters of Rostov executed an order from the Greeek Orthodox Patriarchy of Jerusalem concerning the remake of a number of enamel plaques for decorating the canopy over the Holy Sepulcher. The original canopy was presented to the Patriarchy by Prince of Rostov Konstantin in course of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1859. This means that the level of the contemporary masters craftsmanship has reached a high enough level.
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