The image of Saint Nicholas in the Ukrainian printmaking of the 17th–18th centuries

Abstract

The aim of the work is to research the iconography of the image of Saint Nicholas the Wondermaker in the Ukrainian Baroque printmaking, its compositional structure, principles of construction, and semantics of prints of this topical cycle on the basis of the illustrated Ukrainian Cyrillic old prints, copper print plates of Ukrainian printing houses of the 17th–18th centuries and prints made from the plates that are preserved in the collections of V. I. Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine. Methodology of the research is grounded on iconographic and iconological approach, as well as comparative art criticism analysis of the embodying of Saint Nicholas’ image in icon painting and printmaking. Scientific novelty of the research is in broadening of the conception regarding the iconography of Saint Nicholas’ image in the Ukrainian religious art of the Baroque era. For the first time, based on diverse fi ne arts materials (icon painting, monumental painting, easel engraving and book illustration) the iconography of the image of Saint Nicholas the Wondermaker has been traced in the Ukrainian printmaking (in one-person portrait images and frame vita scenes) of the afore-mentioned period, as well as the peculiarities and differences in comparison to the iconography of Saint Nicholas in the Ukrainian icon painting have been shown. Conclusions. The article demonstrates that the Ukrainian print masters of the Baroque era portraying Saint Nicholas the Wondermaker shifted the focus from the sacred symbolic image, characteristic to icon painting, to the creation of an image close at most to the real life, and thus they enriched not only the canonical iconographic schemes of Saint Nicholas’ image, but also significantly broadened topics and plots of his life cycle in the illustrations on the pages of the Ukrainian old prints.