Icons written to the canon

Anastasia Kaplii writes icons in the early Russian tradition, taking her bearings from the legacy of Andrei Rublev. This is not a stylisation of the old, but the choice of a particular language: restrained colour, a quiet contour, the absence of outward effect. Everything superfluous is removed so that the face remains.

The materials are the same as centuries ago: natural mineral pigments ground by hand, egg tempera, gold. The work proceeds in translucent layers, each of which is laid only on a dried preceding one, and fine painterly strokes are applied on top. This order cannot be hurried, and it is precisely what sets the timeframe.

The works of recent years are ten images: icons of the Mother of God, archangels, hierarchs, great martyrs and a saint who lived in the twentieth century. Fourth-century Byzantium and Moscow in 1952 stand in a single row, and this is the only row where such a neighbourhood is natural. A separate account is written for each image: where the subject came from, what the gesture means, why the icon looks the way it does. It can be read or listened to right on the page of the work.