John the Baptist

Saint John the Apostle

Saint Nicholas

Annunciation (Lady Day)

John the Baptist

Miracle of Saint George over the Dragon

Saint Panteleimon

Archangel Michael

Saint Nicholas

John the Baptist

Saint Paul the Apostle

Saint Sergius of Radonezh

Archangel Michael

Saint Nicholas

Miracle of Saint George over the Dragon

Saint Nicholas

The Savior

Miracle of Saint George over the Dragon

The Savior

John the Baptist

Saint John the Apostle

The Saviour

The Holy Trinity

Saint Nicholas

Saint Dimitri

The Holy Trinity

Saint Nicholas

John the Baptist

Elijah the Prophet

Archangel Gabriel

The Saviour Not Made By Hand

Saint Peter the Apostle

Saint Paul the Apostle

Saint Thomas the Apostle

Saint Nicholas

Saint Nicholas

John the Baptist

The Last Supper

Boards for icons

Boards for icons were maid by woodworkers, sometimes by icon painters themselves. Very often icons were painted on wooden boards. Most common wood for Russian icons was lime tree, larch or fir in the north, pine trees in Pskov. The process was slow and difficult: usually the board was cut out from the very middle layer of a log.

On the face of the board was made a shallow hollow limited by the margins of the board's edges. The older the icon (XI-XII century) the deeper the hollow and the wider the margins. Starting from the XIV century icons were painted on flat boards without margins.

Small icons were panted on single boards. Big icons consisted of several joint boards. Sometimes it is very easy to determine the time and the place where the icon board was made by the type of timbering, depth of the hollow and width of the margins.

Archangel Michael

Saint Nicholas

Saint John the Baptist

Saint Panteleimon

The Holy Trinity

Saint John the Apostle

Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius

The Virgin of White Lake (Belozerskaia)

The Savior

Saint Dimitri

Icon painting is a sacred art

Icon painting in Ancient Rus was considered a sacred art. Artists were to follow canonical instructions directly. These rules limited artist’s self-expression on the one hand, however, made him focus on the spiritual essence of icon on the other hand. Traditions and set techniques were applied not only to the image itself, but to the choice of materials, methods for making paints and the sequence in which each element of the icon was painted.

Saint Mark the Evangelist

Saint Nicholas