The focus of this study is the ornamental mosaic decoration of the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna. The work analyzes and compares the images of the Garden of Eden in the presbytery of the Church of San Vitale with the ancient and early Christian monuments of Aquileia and Sicily, identifies iconographic and stylistic parallels, which allowed us to enrich and concretize existing ideas about possible patterns and influences of various art centers on the creation of monumental decorations of Ravenna churches.

The Rome artistic profile formation at the end of the 13th century took place in the conditions of organic coexistence and intensive interpenetration of elements of ancient, early Christian, Romanesque, Gothic and Byzantine art. The powerful impetus for the figurative and conceptual city renewal was the lead of prominent Roman pontiffs, as well as bishops and cardinals who wished to write their name in history. The discussion about the role of the patron, which began in the circle of Aby Warburg at the beginning of the 20th century, half a century later led to the emergence of one of the most actual approaches to the study of the Proto-Renaissance art. Another important direction of scientific research of these monuments was the reflections about much broader culture processes, figuratively brought into opposition “East – West”. Within this approach, various elements of iconography, which originated in the “Eastern” or “Western” paradigm, are studied, and the factors that influenced master’s choice when referring to one or another artistic tradition are evaluated. The article examines the iconography of the mosaics of the Mariological cycle by Pietro Cavallini in Santa Maria in Trastevere in the focus of the mentioned aspects of the study.

The author analyzed the iconography of the fresco cycle of the Akathist to the Mother of God of the 14th century from Markov Monastery in Macedonia and its connection with liturgical theology. Location of the hymn illustrations above the symbolic scene of the Divine Liturgy differs from numerous similar cycles in monumental ensembles of the 14th century. Illustrations of Akathist Hymn known since the end of the 13th century, and the Divine Liturgy which became widespread in the Paleologian era in the monuments of Serbia are presented in the painting of the Markov Monastery in visual comparison. The meaning of this painting programme allows to understand the work of the Byzantine theologian of the second half of the 14th century Nicholas Kavasila, dedicated to the interpretation of the liturgy. Without insisting on the direct influence of Byzantine texts on the iconographic programme of the frescoes, it can be argued that the general ideas of hesychasm typical to Byzantine and Slavic theologians and painters of this time were the source of new visual interpretations that offered imagery representations of the history of human salvation. Iconography of the illustrations of the Akathist Hymn, the Great Entrance and Proskomidia in the context of the symbolic and historical interpretation of the liturgy were researched.

The article is devoted to images of Old Testament prophets and patriarchs, contain in Pictures-Chronicles’ miniatures. In them compositions, going back to a common source (the lost cycle of monumental paintings in Giordano Orsini palace), world history is represented as “famous people” images from different times. The essay focuses on specific features of the Crespi Chronicle, the Cockerell Chronicle and their later copies, and on changings of illustration program in the Florentine Pictures-Chronicle and manuscript from Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (Amsterdam). Autor outlined the representation principles of biblical images in manuscripts, and traced their iconographic parallels in pictorial tradition of medieval cultures and Quattrocento visual arts.

The paper considers the functional and artistic features, the role of ornament in the system of illumination of the Armenian manuscript Gospels. In view of the fact that the Four Gospels were also used as Lectionaries and Aprakos Gospels, the Armenian scribes and miniaturists introduced new design elements into the manuscripts, different from the Byzantine tradition, which visually marked the beginning of the readings. Ornaments were used primarily for this purpose, performing the extremely important functions of subdividing the text. The ornament is present in each of the six structural components of the illumination system, shaping them: in the chorans (in the Epistle of Eusebius and the canons/tables of concordance); in title pages (in headpieces, initials and right marginalia, in letters of the text); in the portraits of the evangelists; under the headings of readings-pericopes; in decorative and narrative marginalia next to rubrics; in full-page and text miniatures. Thus, the ornament became the “lymph” of the artistic organism of the Armenian manuscript book, defining its unity and integrity.

The purpose of the local research is to study historical situations and the social context which allows us to reveal the features of the historical development of the Norwegian Church and stone architecture in the 11th – 12th centuries. Church architecture in Norway developed under the influence of the Christian religion. Churches and cathedrals built at the request of the Norwegian kings strengthened the prestige of the monarch, singled out dioceses and indicated the triumph of a new religion in the country. In the second half of the 12th century the originality and uniqueness of the cathedrals erected by church order indicates the active position of the archbishops in relation to architecture.

The article analyzes the peculiarities of the iconography of the “Coronation of Esther” in the cycle of the “Life of the Virgin Mary”, created for the Reims Cathedral at the beginning of the 16th century. While the composition of the tapestries is obviously influenced by such an important textual source as Biblia Pauperum, the master depicts the scene in his own way, finding himself closer to the interpretation of Bible moralisée. The polemic with Protestants increased attention to the image of the Virgin Mary in Catholic art. At the same time, French foreign policy and relations of Paris and Saint-Siège may have been a factor in the additional visualization of the monarch’s status as “the most Christian king,” which led to an increased politicization of French art and an emphasis on the coronation theme.

The Fourteen Holy Helpers (Vierzehn Nothelfer) are a group of fourteen holy martyrs revered in Western tradition as protectors from disease and death. The article focuses on questions of appearance and popularization of cult of Fourteen Holy Helpers in Germany and Austria from 14 to 16 centuries. The author examines a historical context of origins and spreading of this group of saints and iconographic tradition of representing the image of Fourteen Holy Helpers. Hypotheses are put forward that consider the dependence of the image of the Fourteen Holy Helpers on historical events, social issues and territorial features.

The article deals with the influence of scientific discoveries on the artistic practices of fine arts. We propose a hypothesis about the influence of a new view on the realistic picture by society and artists, as on a visual narrative and narrative practice with a system of semiotic signs and symbols of new realities of natural scientific knowledge of the late Late Middle Ages, the beginning of the New Age in Europe. In this paradigm of scientific discoveries, new proposals for the symbolism of traditional Christian subjects were formed. Was this new symbolic system in the works we are discussing uniquely readable to contemporaries? Probably yes. For those of them who were the customer of easel and monumental paintings, all signs and symbols indicating scientific discoveries were understandable and acceptable in translating into the language of symbols of traditional Christian plots of paintings. We offer a brief overview of the field of poetics of creating a picture from the point of view of realistic exhaustion and reflection.

The paper argues that Bibikhin sought to bridge the contradiction between continental and analytical philosophy by construing Heidegger and Wittgenstein in the tradition of hesychasm. A key to this synthesis is first proposed: the doctrine of thoughts, which enabled him to conceive of ascetics as the art of improvisation. It is found that Bibikhin transformed Bakhtin’s thesis of safe and dangerous children, making it a reference point when talking about the continuity of the Eastern Christian ascetic tradition. The institutional foundations of Bibikhin’s occupation with Hesychast theology are exposed, and it is demonstrated how Bibikhin differs from those intellectuals who have reinvented the intermittent religious tradition as supposedly contiguous. It is shown that the technological origins of the Renaissance are directly correlated by Bibikhin with the technique of fighting thoughts. Thus the parallels between ascetics and art become productive, and dialectics is rejected for the sake of finding moments of salvation in the Christian sense equally in the works of Heidegger and Wittgenstein. A detailed analysis of one of the episodes of Bibikhin’s diary entries shows how this thinker formed a model of the self-development of philosophy, similar to the autonomous action of prayer in Hesychast ascetic practice.

The work analyzes the work of Grigory Krug, an iconographer of Russian emigration. Grigory Krug, who was born in St. Petersburg, in a Swedish family, ended up in Estonia after the revolution, and then emigrated to France. Here he studied with the leading masters of the Silver Age and the avant-garde, entered the sphere of the artistic elite of Paris, began a successful exhibition activity. But soon he took up icon painting, became a monk and became one of the most famous Russian icon painters of the Paris school, whom the press called the new Andrei Rublev. Today, the work of Grigory Krug is becoming particularly relevant.