Art: 20th Century Icons

The greatest artists Russia ever produced were the profoundly religious painters of icons of 15th Century Novgorod and Moscow. Their serene holy families and saints, compacted of austere line and pure color, were a legacy from Byzantium. But icon-painting went out of fashion when Peter the Great imported more sophisticated Western painting (along with field artillery, shaving and ballroom dancing) in the 18th Century.

Last week a small group of refugee Russian artists, impelled by deep religious feelings of their own, put on a display of 20th Century icons at New York’s Fordham University. Their modern icons dealt with the same devotional subjects—Christ Enthroned, The Archangel Michael, St. Nicholas, The Annunciation—as the 15th Century masterpieces. Painted in tempera on cypress or pine, they also had much of the same timeless, static charm.

The seven men and two women met as D.P.s in Hamburg at the end of World War II, organized a school of Russian arts & crafts to fill their idle hours. Soon they had learned enough about the ancient art of icon-painting to fill commissions for Greek Orthodox churches in Britain, France and Belgium.

In the past year, eight of the nine came to the U.S., took daytime jobs, spent their evenings painting. They hope that the Fordham exhibit will lead to commissions from U.S. churches, a chance to start another school and work full-time at their art.

About life in Soviet Russia, none of the artists, who range in age from 19 to 45, has much to say. Several have relatives there. Says Anatoly Abramov, once a Soviet architect: “For different reasons and in different ways, we had come to a deeply religious time. We felt we could express our feelings best through the icon.”