That said, what can a concise book on Rublev mean to a modern readership? To Western Europeans, it probably evokes one of two mental constructs, reaching somewhat different groups. To that end we pay special attention to the visual material in this volume, and do our best to explain it in context. But I believe that in appreciating Rublev in our, or any, age, one cannot help but start from the immediate joy and uplift that his great works inspire, and trust that any further knowledge of his life, times and works will serve to enhance this. It is a complicated and (I think) interesting framework, worth some attention. Some knowledge of the Bible and the basic tenets of Christianity are assumed beyond that, in approaching Rublev I have taken a viewpoint that attempts to position his art and the art around him within a cultural-historical framework – one that reaches into our own times, indeed. One could hardly presume to match Fr Bunge’s theological knowledge and insights, or those of several other contemporary experts nor would one wish to (though in discussing a religious artist, matters of religion cannot help but be of major importance). At this point it seems incumbent on the present author to show his hand. The closest has been a detailed study of his most famous icon by the Swiss Orthodox monk and theologian Gabriel Bunge, translated by Andrew Louth (2007). To these problems we return in due course as appropriate, but they may help to explain why no previous volume on him (so far as I know) has ever appeared in English. All other sources relating to him – of varying reliability – postdate 1430. The paintings securely attributed to Rublev, few in number, have almost all suffered damage of various kinds, while other questions of attribution seem never-ending, despite meticulous scholarly efforts. Not surprisingly, many modern scholars are unwilling to accept it as evidence, though I do.Įven his surname – unusual in his time – is problematic, and it is uncertain how he pronounced it. That note itself was not preserved, but was in turn copied. Or do we? This was copied by an eighteenth-century antiquarian from a gravestone in the courtyard of the Moscow Andronikov Monastery at a spot that was later built over. We do not know where or when he was born (though no doubt in the 1360s) or how he spent his first thirty or forty years, but it seems we know the date of his death: 29January 1430. In the case of Rublev, we have two firm references to work he did in his life-time, in the Trinity Chronicle under the years 14 (the important ms of the Trinity Chronicle itself was destroyed in the 1812 fire of Moscow, but luckily could be reconstructed by the modern scholar M. Everything that seems established can slip through the fingers. How is one to compose the biography of an artist who was undoubtedly of the first importance, but about whom almost nothing is known with any certainty? The task would be worthy of a Borges mystification.
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