Printed Icons in the Early Slavic World

• In Event: Iconographies: Freedom and Form

Abstract

What might iconography gain by migrating to the page, and what might it lose? Beginning in the seventeenth century prints with images of beloved cult icons and famous pilgrimage sites spread in the South and East Slavic worlds. Worried about the uptick in cheaply produced iconography, church leaders banned printed icons. Later, their rulings would be edited in pattern books that codified traditional craft knowledge. Printed icons raised new questions about paper as a support for sacred iconography. Was the printed icon simply a utilitarian device for promoting shrines and publicizing iconography, or was it an autonomous object worthy of the same veneration given to panels? This paper discusses printed iconography within the wider context of the early modern transformation of the art of icon painting.

Author

• Justin Willson, Icon Museum and Study Center