The motif of the “Seven Sacraments” in Russian art of the 17th century and its book source

Abstract

The article deals with a rather rare for Russian art of the 17^th century story of the Seven Sacraments. Its source was the engravings of the printing house of the Kyev Pechersk Lavra, which were among the book “projects” of the head of the Kyiv Metropolis of the Constantinople Orthodox Church, Petro Mohyla (1632–1647). A few images of that motif have long been known to researchers, but the origin of its variations has not been revealed. The issue is studied on the examples of two icons of the last quarter of the 17^th century “Crucifixion with the Seven Sacraments”. Their distinguishing feature is the depicting the optional for all Christians sacrament of marriage in the foreground. The author of the article suggests that the creation of such an iconography was associated with the marriage of Tsar Feodor Alekseyevich. The development of baroque aesthetics also prompted artists to combine elements of different iconographic schemes in one composition and create a complicated version of the Life-Giving Tree with scenes of the seven Sacraments and the Passion of Jesus cycle. They used several literary and visual sources. The surviving samples of such a composition demonstrate the variability of its iconography and the creative nature of the work of Russian icon painters in the 17^th century, who could create completely independent works on the same subject with pronounced individual characteristics.