The Mural Painting of the Church of the Savior at Berestove: Semantics and Stylistics

Alina Kondratiuk

The first half of the 17th century is recognized as a crucial point in Ukrainian culture. Active development of intellectual, cultural, and artistic life in the Kyiv Metropolitan See contributed to the appearance of several famous artistic monuments. Among them one can find a unique monumental ensemble - the murals of the Church of the Savior at Berestove, which were executed in 1643–1644 by Greek painters. The mural painting of the Church of the Savior is very important for an understanding of the characteristic features of Ukrainian spiritual life in the early modern period. This painting is unique; it does not have analogues in Ukrainian artistic culture of that time. Its style is typical for Orthodox post-Byzantine tradition (even most of the text following the compositions is written in Greek), but in the complex theological program of the ensemble new Baroque ideas were expressed. A study of the murals of the Church of the Savior is also important because of the prominent role this monument plays in the formation of a new style of Ukrainian Baroque Art. The project examines the issues of terminology and methodology in studying Ukrainian art of the first part of the 17th century. It focuses on the formation of the art school and the inheritance of tradition on the grounds of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. We can only imagine the artistic culture of Kyiv in the first part of the 17th century since insufficient visual material remains for the purposes of analysis. Very few monuments of art of this time have been preserved. Among them, architecture and engraving predominate. Icons are practically absent. To fill these gaps, it is necessary to draw on the visual material of the western regions of Ukraine. It is generally accepted that the development of icon painting both in the East and in the West took place synchronously. The ensemble of the Church of the Savior is the only complete surviving monumental ensemble in Kyiv of that time. Therefore, the study of this monument in the broad context of post-Byzantine art is still relevant. This Ukrainian place of worship should be presented among the typologically related monuments created in the 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries in the Balkans and in the Mediterranean centers. To present a complete picture of the development of art on the territory of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, it is necessary for it to encompass works of emblematic engraving from the first part of the 17th century. At that time, the Kyiv Сollegium and the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra print shop acted as a transmission link for the transfer of ideas and images from the Catholic West to the Orthodox East. A number of emblematic and heraldic eulogies, primarily in honor of Metropolitan Peter Mohyla and his associates, were published there during the 1630s and 1640s. These panegyric compositions allow us to identify borrowings from Western European art. This topic has been little explored in Ukrainian art history. Early modern emblematic editions were studied mainly by literary critics. Their artistic design requires further thorough research.