Pages: 321-340 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.55086/sp265321340

The diverse corpus of Old Russian decorative art from the late twelfth to the thirteenth century — including frescoes, miniatures, white-stone and wood carving, painted woodwork, jewelry, and gold embroidery — reveals significant stylistic affinities. Workds in different media display a shared tendency toward curvilinear forms, ornamental richness, and visual splendor. Miniatures, painted woodwork, niello and gold letter also exhibit the emergence of a new teratological style.
Stylistic parallels across this material, considered alongside the dating of manuscripts and white-stone cathedrals and the dendrochronological evidence for objects from the cultural layers of Novgorod the Great, make it possible to date works characterized by an exaggerated and ornate style to the late twelfth and first third of the thirteenth century, including objects for which no precise dates are available.
These parallels also allow a more detailed characterization of the final pre-Mongol phase of Old Russian decorative art. During this period, an exaggerated and ornate mode of representing figurative and ornamental imagery — associated with late Komnenian mannerism — emerged in the art of Byzantium and Rus’. This development enhanced the expressiveness and elaboration of Christian imagery. Ornament became less restrained, while individual motifs acquired increasingly intricate internal articulation. At the same time, excessive ornamentation introduced a degree of visual overload and a departure from established conventions of Christian image-making, prompting a renewed strengthening of the classicizing tendency.

Keywords: Old Rus’, Byzantium, decorative, ornament, motifs, mannerism

Information about author:

Natalia Zhilina (Moscow, Russian Federation). Doctor of Historical Sciences. Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dmitry Ulyanov St., 19, Moscow, 117292, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]
ORCID: 0000-0002-0880-6434