The section is very easy to use. Just enter the desired word in the field provided, and we will give you a list of its meanings. I would like to note that our site provides data from various sources - encyclopedic, explanatory, word-formation dictionaries. Here you can also see examples of the use of the word you entered.

Meaning of the word parsuna

parsuna in the crossword dictionary

New explanatory dictionary of the Russian language, T. F. Efremova.

parsuna

and. outdated A work of Russian easel portrait painting from the late 16th-17th centuries.

Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998

parsuna

PARSUNA (distortion of the word “person”) is a conventional name for works of Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian portraiture. 16-17 centuries, combining icon painting techniques with realistic figurative interpretation.

Parsuna

(a distortion of the word “persona”, from Latin persona ≈ personality, face), a work of Russian portraiture of the 17th century. The first paintings, neither in the technique of execution nor in the figurative structure, actually differ from the works of icon painting (P. by Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, 1st half of the 17th century, Historical Museum, Moscow). In the 2nd half of the 17th century. P.'s development proceeds in two directions. The first is characterized by an even greater strengthening of the iconic principle, the features real character as if superimposed on the ideal diagram of the face of his holy patron (P. Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich, 1686, Historical Museum). The second direction, not without the influence of foreigners who worked in Russia, is gradually adopting Western techniques. European painting, tends to transfer individual characteristics models, three-dimensional forms, while at the same time maintaining traditional rigidity in the interpretation of clothing (parsun by G. P. Godunov). In the 2nd half of the 17th century. P. is sometimes written on canvas oil paints, sometimes from life. As a rule, paintings were created by painters of the Armory Chamber (S. F. Ushakov, I. Maksimov, I. A. Bezmin, V. Poznansky, G. Odolsky, M. I. Choglokov, etc.).

Lit.: Novitsky A., Parsun letter in Moscow Rus', “Old Years”, 1909, July ≈ September; Ovchinnikova E. S., Portrait in Russian art XVII century, M., 1955.

L. V. Betin.

Wikipedia

Parsuna

Parsuna- an early “primitive” genre of portraiture in the Russian kingdom, which in its pictorial means was dependent on icon painting.

Originally synonymous with the modern concept portrait regardless of the style, image technique, place and time of writing, a distortion of the word “persona”, which in the 17th century was used to describe secular portraits.

Examples of the use of the word parsuna in literature.

On the walls upholstered in gilded leather hung parsuns, or - in a new way - portraits of the Golitsyn princes and in a magnificent Venice frame - an image of a double-headed eagle holding a portrait of Sophia in its paws.

“Not an icon,” the architect explained, “that’s foreign.” parsuna called.

When lovers, tired of caresses, fall asleep, when old people, exhausted by insomnia, groan in heavy delirium, when kings emerge from the gilded frames of their magnificent Parsun, and long-dead beauties are looking for their forever lost attractiveness, when not a single bird sings, when the horizon does not yet flicker in the haze, when a sigh sweeps through space and sadness floats over the steppes - maybe it’s then that I need to get off the high round pile stones in the middle of a spacious Kyiv Square, bearing my name, and ride on a bronze horse, cheerfully waving a bronze mace, to the sound of bronze hooves, scaring away the little ones who love to play so much at the foot of the monument?

He was parsuna, or a portrait, but it was unknown how to handle it, and much of this could not even be said in front of him.

While Her Majesty, he answered, has not yet accomplished anything worthwhile for the good of Russia, I command you, Vice-Governor, to write parsuns her image is consistent with the latest portraits of Anna Ioannovna.

Now, when she sinned with Biren, two people looked at her parsuns from different angles.

Can parsuns write as if they were living human faces, not aging or dying, but the spirit lives in them forever.

Rane parsun He ordered the painting to be done with the red cavalry, and now, like a lackey, I am bringing her the blue cavalry.

Ordered from Timofey Arkhipych parsun write, and hung a portrait of the holy fool in my bedroom.

Menshikov galloped to Novgorod to present Boris Petrovich with the royal parsun, or a portrait strewn with diamonds, and the still unprecedented rank of Field Marshal.

I brought you a skilled painter with instructions to write parsun with some kind person.

He once wrote parsun Bishop Athanasius, Bishop of Kholmogory and Vazhesky.

Humanity has tried to capture the world around us, its thoughts and experiences. A lot of time passed before rock paintings transformed into full-fledged paintings. In the Middle Ages, portraiture was expressed primarily in the depiction of the faces of saints - iconography. And only from the end of the 16th century did artists begin to create portraits real people: political, social and cultural figures. This type of art was called “parsuna” (photos of the works are presented below). This type of portraiture has become widespread in Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian culture.

Parsuna - what is it?

This name got its name from the distorted Latin word persona - “personality”. This is what portrait images were called in Europe at that time. Parsuna is a generalized name for works of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian portraiture of the late 16th and 17th centuries, which combines iconography with a more realistic interpretation. This is an early and to some extent primitive genre of portraiture, widespread in the Russian kingdom. Parsuna is the original synonym for the more modern concept of “portrait”, regardless of the technique, style and time of writing.

Origin of the term

In 1851, the publication “Antiquities” was published Russian state", containing many illustrations. The fourth section of the book was compiled by I.M. Snegirev, who for the first time tried to summarize all existing materials on the history of Russian portraiture. It is believed that it was this author who first mentioned what parsuna is. However, as a scientific term, this word became widespread only in the second half of the 20th century after the publication of S. “Portrait in Russian art of the 17th century.” It was she who emphasized that parsuna is an early easel portraiture of the late 16th-17th centuries.

Characteristic features of the genre

Parsuna arose in Russian history, when the medieval worldview began to undergo transformations, which led to the emergence of new artistic ideals. It is believed that work in this artistic direction were created by painters of the Armory Chamber - Ushakov S.F., Odolsky G., Bezmin I.A., Maksimov I., Choglokov M.I. and others. However, these works of art, as a rule, were not signed by their creators, so it is not possible to confirm the authorship of certain works. The date of painting of such a portrait was also not indicated anywhere, which makes it difficult to establish the chronological sequence of creation.

Parsuna is a painting that arose under the influence of the Western European school. The manner and style of writing are conveyed in bright and rather variegated colors, but are still respected icon painting traditions. In general, parsuns are heterogeneous both in material and technological terms and in stylistic terms. However, they are increasingly being used to create images on canvas. Portrait likeness is conveyed very conditionally; some attributes or signature are often used, thanks to which it is possible to determine who exactly is depicted.

As Lev Lifshits, Doctor of Art History, noted, the authors of the parsuns did not try to accurately convey facial features or state of mind of the person being portrayed, they sought to observe clear canons of stencil presentation of a figure that would correspond to the rank or rank of the model - ambassador, governor, prince, boyar. To better understand what parsuna is, just look at the portraits of that time.

Types

In order to somehow organize the examples of portrait painting of that era, modern art historians have identified the following categories of parsuns, based on personalities and painting techniques:

Tempera on board, gravestone portraits Ivanovich, Alexey Mikhailovich);

Images of high-ranking persons: princes, nobles, stolniks (Lyutkin, Repnin Gallery, Naryshkin);

Images of church hierarchs (Joachim, Nikon);

- “parsun” icon.

“Picturesque” (“parsun”) icon

This type includes images of saints, for which the artist used oil paints (at least in layers of paint). The technique of making such icons is as close as possible to classical European. “Parsun” icons belong to the transitional period of painting. There are two main techniques of classical oil painting used to depict the faces of saints at that time:

Drawing on canvas using dark primer;

Work on a wooden base using light primer.

It is worth noting that parsuna is a far from fully studied genre of Russian portrait painting. And cultural scientists still have a lot to accomplish interesting discoveries in this area.

Introduction

Parsuna art of the 17th century

The mystique of Parsuna

Russian history painting XVII-XVIII

Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

Parsuna – http://mech.math.msu.su/~apentus/znaete/images/parsuna.jpgwork of Russian portraiture of the late 16th-17th centuries. The term “parsuna” was introduced in 1854 by the Russian researcher I. Snegirev, but initially it meant the same as “person,” that is, just a portrait. The parsun combines the features and techniques of traditional ancient Russian icon painting and Western European secular painting from life.

The first parsuns, depicting real historical figures, neither performance technique, nor figurative system actually did not differ from works of icon painting. In the second half of the 17th century. Parsuns sometimes painted on canvas with oil paints, sometimes from life. The art of parsuna existed until the 1760s, and in provincial Russian cities parsunas were painted even later.

Parsuna art of the 17th century

Already in the 11th-13th centuries, images of historical figures - temple builders - appeared on the walls of cathedrals: Prince Yaroslav the Wise with his family, Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich presenting a model of the temple to Christ. Starting from the middle of the 16th century, icons appeared with still very conventional images of living members of the royal family.

Portrait images in the icons of the second half of the 17th century found themselves at the crossroads of man’s ascent to the divine, and the descent of the divine to the human. The icon painters of the Armory Chamber, relying on their own aesthetic canons, created new type the face of the Savior Not Made by Hands, distinguished by the certainty of its human appearance. The image of the “Savior Not Made by Hands” of the 1670s by Simon Ushakov can be considered a program for this direction.

As court artists, icon painters could not imagine the appearance of the “King of Heaven,” bypassing the well-known features of the “king of the earth.” Many of the masters of this trend known to us (Simon Ushakov, Karp Zolotarev, Ivan Refusitsky) were portrait painters of the royal court, which they themselves proudly described in their treatises and petitions. Creation royal portraits, and then portraits of representatives of the church hierarchy and court circles became a fundamentally new step in the culture of Rus'. In 1672, the “Titular Book” was created, which collected a whole series portrait miniatures. These are images of Russian tsars, patriarchs, as well as foreign representatives of the supreme nobility, dead and living (they were painted from life).

The Russian viewer will have the opportunity to see for the first time the famous portrait of Ivan the Terrible, brought to Russia, which ended up in Denmark at the end of the 17th century (National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen). In the collection State Museum fine arts(Copenhagen) a series of four portraits of horsemen is kept. The series, representing two Russian tsars - Mikhail Fedorovich and Alexei Mikhailovich - and two legendary eastern rulers, came to Denmark no later than 1696; the portraits originally belonged to the royal Kunstkamera, a collection of rarities and curiosities. Two of them - Mikhail Fedorovich and Alexey Mikhailovich - are presented at the exhibition.

A picturesque portrait of the last third of the 17th century - the 1700s is the main section of the exhibition. The picturesque parsuna is both the heir to the spiritual and visual traditions of the Russian Middle Ages and the ancestor secular portrait, a phenomenon of the New Age.

Notable are textbook monuments, such as the image of Alexei Mikhailovich “in a large outfit” (late 1670 - early 1680s, State Historical Museum), L. K. Naryshkin (late 17th century, State Historical Museum), V. F. Lyutkin (1697, State Historical Museum) and other. Of particular interest is the recently discovered, comprehensively researched and restored portrait of Patriarch Joachim Karp Zolotarev (1678, Tobolsk Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve). He is on at the moment the earliest signed and dated work among the Parsuns, mostly anonymous.

Although parsuns represent a fundamentally unique material, there are also special rarities among them. One of them is a taffeta portrait of Patriarch Nikon (1682, State Historical Museum). The portrait is an applique of silk fabrics and paper, and only the face and hands are painted.

Portraits of foreign artists who worked at the royal court during the period of introducing Rus' to values artistic culture New times, were of exceptional importance for Russian masters as models that they sought to imitate. This group of pictorial portraits has its own rarity - the famous portrait of Patriarch Nikon with the clergy, painted in the early 1660s (State Historical-Architectural and art museum"New Jerusalem"). This is the earliest of the 17th century painting portraits known to us, created on Russian soil, the only one preserved lifetime portrait Patriarch Nikon and the only group portrait of that era that has come down to us. Group portrait of Patriarch Nikon with clergy - whole visual encyclopedia patriarchal and church-monastic life of that time.

Of great interest is the exhibited complex of monuments, united by the name Preobrazhenskaya series. It includes a group of portrait images commissioned by Peter I for his new Preobrazhensky Palace. The creation of the series dates back to 1692-1700, and the authorship is attributed to unknown Russian masters of the Armory Chamber. The characters of the main core of the series are participants in the “The Most Drunken Extravagant Council of the All-Joking Prince-Pope,” a satirical institution created by Peter I. The members of the “cathedral” consisted of people noble families from the king's inner circle. In comparison with pure parsuna, the portraits of the series are distinguished by greater emotional and facial relaxation, picturesqueness and other spiritual charge. In them one can see a connection with the grotesque stream in Western European baroque painting of the 17th century. It is no coincidence that researchers no longer call this group Parsuna, but only talk about the traditions of Parsuna at the end of the 17th century.

The mystique of Parsuna

A strange duality is inherent in the large parsuna “Portrait of Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich” (1686, State Historical Museum), made in the tradition of icon painting. The face of the young king is painted three-dimensionally, and the robes and cartouches are designed flatly. The divine power of the king is emphasized by the halo around his head and the image of the Savior Not Made by Hands at the top. There is a special charm in the timid, inept Parsuns, in whom we see a sign of the times.

IN XVII century When secular trends intensified in Russia and a keen interest in European tastes and habits emerged, artists began to turn to Western European experience. In such a situation, when there is a search for portraiture, the appearance of a parsuna is quite natural.

“Parsuna” (a distorted “person”) is translated from Latin as “person”, not “man” (homo), but a certain type - “king”, “nobleman”, “ambassador” - with an emphasis on the concept of gender. Parsuns - secular ceremonial portraits in the interior - were perceived as a sign of prestige. The Russian nobility needed to adapt to new cultural trends that were penetrating traditional forms of everyday life. The parsuna was well suited for the ceremonial rituals of solemn court etiquette, cultivated in the princely-boyar environment, and for demonstrating the high position of the model. It is no coincidence that parsuns are compared to poetic panegyrics.

The parsun, first of all, emphasized the belonging of the person depicted to high rank. The heroes appear in lush attire and in rich interiors. The private and individual are almost not revealed in them.

The main thing in parsun has always been submission to class norms: there is so much significance and imposingness in the characters. The artists' attention is focused not on the face, but on the pose of the person depicted, rich details, accessories, images of coats of arms, and inscriptions. For the first time, such a complete and varied understanding of the first genre of secular art in Russia - parsun, its origins, modifications - is given by the large-scale, educational and spectacular exhibition “Russian Historical Portrait. The Age of Parsuna." More than a hundred exhibits (icons, frescoes, parsuns, facial embroidery, coins, medals, miniatures, engravings) from 14 Russian and Danish museums show how differently the art of portraiture was included in life in Russia in the 17th–18th centuries. Here you can see an interesting gallery of historical figures of the era. And it is not so important in the name of what these were created mysterious parsuns. They are still priceless evidence of time. One of the earliest exhibits includes a shoulder-length “Portrait of Ivan the Terrible” from National Museum Denmark (1630) – one is struck by the expressive eyes and eyebrows, bordered by a dark outline, and a generalized interpretation of the face.

It was in the icon-painting environment that the masters of the Armory Chamber developed a new understanding of man. The famous Moscow masters Simon Ushakov and Joseph Vladimirov balance the artistic requirements for the icon and the portrait of the tsar or governor. Ushakov managed to convey materiality, a sense of physicality, the earthly in the images of saints: he combined icon traditions with in a realistic manner using new means. His image of the Savior Not Made by Hands, whose face is painted using black and white modeling, is both an icon and a portrait with a certain human appearance. This is how the descent of the divine to the human took place. The royal icon painters were portrait painters of the royal court, creating icons and portraits. AND unusual way exposure further enhances the strange attractiveness of the parsuns. Portraits hanging from the ceiling are presented on transparent glass backgrounds, through which the brickwork is visible. And on pylons covered with red fabric, kings, patriarchs, and aristocrats sometimes appear in the manner of saints (Princess Sophia in the image of King Solomon). The half-length “Portrait of Alexei Mikhailovich” (1680s, State Historical Museum) is extremely good. The king is depicted in a formal suit, embroidered with pearls and precious stones, wearing a high hat trimmed with fur. The face is interpreted more truthfully than in the early parsuns. Everything seems to be designed for emotional impact. The viewer feels the significance of the person depicted, occupying a high position, as in “Portrait of V. F. Lyutkin” (1697, State Historical Museum).

A full-length figure in a blue caftan with wide sleeves and high cuffs right hand leans on the hilt of the sword, holds the hem of his clothes with his left. His self-esteem and self-confidence are well conveyed. The simplicity and conciseness of the plastic characteristics of the face is combined with the cut-off modeling of objects and the ability to convey the texture of fabrics. But still, as in earlier parsuns, accessories are of great importance.

The portraits from the famous Transfiguration series of participants in the “Most Drunken Council of the All-Jesting Prince-Pope”, created by Peter I in 1694 with the aim of discrediting the church, are particularly strong and powerful. The portraits expressed creative quests, character traits, and a person’s worldview at the turn of the Middle Ages and the New Age. Artists are already starting to think about composition.

Members of the “cathedral” - representatives of noble families - took part in masquerade processions and clownish festivals. The portraits boldly ridicule the traditional way of life Ancient Rus', satirical characters are endowed strong emotions, but such grotesqueness is not typical. Those depicted in the portraits of the Preobrazhenskaya series were considered jesters, but after research and clarification of the names of the characters, it turned out that the portraits depicted representatives of famous Russian families: the Apraskins, Naryshkins... associates of Peter. The “Portrait of Yakov Turgenev” (1695) is striking in its extreme nakedness of personality. The tired, wrinkled face of an elderly man. There is something tragic in his sad eyes, fixed on the viewer, in his facial features, as if distorted by a bitter grimace. And his fate was tragic. One of the first comrades of young Peter in the “cathedral” had the title of “old warrior and Kiev colonel.” He commanded a company in the maneuvers of Peter's amusing troops. But from 1694 he began to play in clownish festivities, and Peter’s amusements were cruel and wild in nature. Soon after his parody and blasphemous wedding, Turgenev died.

The unusual portraits of the Preobrazhenskaya series, in which the traditions of icon painting and parsuns were combined with the grotesque line of Western European art, did not receive further development in Russian portraiture, which chose a different path.

History of Russian painting XVII-XVIII

The history of Russian art at the beginning of the 18th century underwent a turning point. Old Russian art was replaced by new “European” art. Iconography gave way to painting. Peter I sent students abroad to comprehend European art, and the most famous of them - engraver Alexey Zubov and portrait painter Ivan Nikitin - laid the foundation for Russian realistic art. The beginning of the 18th century was decisive for Russian painting. It was this period that approved the replacement of the ancient artistic traditions. Arriving from abroad greatest masters is key in the development of all types of arts in Russia.

The development of icon painting in the Old Russian style stopped; new church painting was subordinated to the new church architecture. The icons lost their style: they became simply paintings on religious themes. At this time, many of Peter’s “pensioners” returned to Russia after studying abroad. abroad they studied “portrait” and “historical” painting.

Not only the figurative language changed, but also the entire figurative system. The goals and place of the artist in public life countries. New genres developed, and especially favorable conditions arose for portraiture. Interest in depicting a “parsun” (person) arose in Rus' already in the second half of the 17th century. The pictorial language of parsuna is largely conventional: the figure, almost merging with the background, was interpreted flatly, the range of colors is dark. The artist is still learning to peer into facial features, to capture and convey portrait likeness on canvas, and tries to understand a person through his appearance. Parsun traditions will live on for quite some time. portrait XVIII century, until the middle of the century.

At the same time, with early XVIII century, new forms of portraits are emerging. The image of a person required bold, picturesque solutions. The Rise of Art mid-18th century century coincides with the rise of the whole national culture, represented by the names of Lomonosov, Novikov, Sumarokov, Radishchev. Starting from the time of Peter the Great, Russian culture developed under the influence of the ideas of the Enlightenment, and portrait art became the embodiment of a new ideal of the human personality that arose in the progressive circles of Russian society.

The greatest masters of that time - Antropov and Argunov, independently mastered the techniques portrait art. Unlike foreigners, they sought to overcome the superficial perception of nature and created works full of energy, expressiveness and bright colors.

In the second half of the 18th century, the further development of the ideas of the Enlightenment determined a high idea of ​​the purpose of man and filled art with humanistic content. Prominent artists of that time - F. Rokotov, D. Levitsky and V. Borovikovsky had a profound impact on the development of portrait art.

Conclusion

The peculiarity of this work is the desire to show parsuna not in isolation, but in connection with other phenomena and trends of the second half of the 17th century, one way or another connected with a new understanding of the image of man, figurative language And artistic means New time.

The birth of the portrait in the environment of late medieval art is a very interesting and important phenomenon. Simultaneous exposure wide range parsun and icons of the last third of the 17th century will for the first time provide the viewer with a fruitful opportunity for direct comparisons.

Parsuna in Russian art is a transitional stage from an icon to a secular portrait.

The art of parsuna is all the more important to consider in connection with the works made by Russian and foreign masters working in Russia.

Literature

1. Gnedich P. P. World history arts - M.: Sovremennik, 2008.

2. European painting of the 13th-20th centuries: Encycl. words /Rus. acad. arts,

3. History of Art: Textbook. a manual for art students. school and schools / Author: A. A. Vorotnikov, O. D. Gorshkovoz, O. A. Erkina. -Minsk: We’ll lie. writer, 2007.

4. Cumming R. Artists: Life and work of 50 famous painters. -London; M.: Dorling Kindersley: Slovo, 2007.

5. The world inside and outside the walls: Interior and landscape in European painting of the 15-20 centuries/I. E. Danilova; Ross. state humanitarian University, Institute of Higher humanitarian research -M.: RSUH, 2007.

6. Scientific - research Institute of Theory and History of Image. arts; L. S. Aleshina, T. S. Voronina, N. Yu. Zolotova and others. Editorial Board: V. V. Vanslov and others. - M.: Art: NOTA BENE, 2007.

7. Encyclopedic Dictionary painting: Western painting from the Middle Ages to the present day: Trans. from fr. /Ed. rus. lane N. Milk. -M.: Terra, 2005.

Parsuna- - (from the Latin persona - person, person) is the conventional name for works of Russian portraiture of the 17th century. The first parsuns, which depicted real historical figures, did not actually differ in either the technique of execution or the figurative system from the works of icon painting (Portrait of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, 1st half of the 17th century). In the 2nd half of the 17th century, the development of parsuna went in 2 directions - an even greater strengthening of the iconographic principle (the features of a real character seemed to dissolve in the ideal outline of the face of his holy patron) and, not without the influence of foreign artists working in Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, they gradually adopted techniques of Western European painting, sought to convey the individual characteristics of the model and the volume of forms. In the 2nd half of the 17th century, Parsuns sometimes painted on canvas with oil paints, sometimes from life. As a rule, parsuns were created by painters of the Armory Chamber - S. F. Ushakov, I. Maksimov, I. A. Bezmin, G. Odolsky, M. I. Choglokov and others. The term parsun extends to similar phenomena in the painting of Ukraine and Belarus (Portrait Konstantin Ostrogsky, 1st half of the 17th century).

Parsuna

- (from the Latin persona - personality, face) the conventional name for works of Russian portraiture of the 17th century. The first parsuns, which depicted real historical figures, did not actually differ in either the technique of execution or the figurative system from the works of icon painting (Portrait of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, 1st half of the 17th century). In the 2nd half of the 17th century, the development of parsuna went in 2 directions - an even greater strengthening of the iconographic principle (the features of a real character seemed to dissolve in the ideal outline of the face of his holy patron) and, not without the influence of foreign artists working in Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, they gradually adopted techniques of Western European painting, sought to convey the individual characteristics of the model and the volume of forms. In the 2nd half of the 17th century, Parsuns sometimes painted on canvas with oil paints, sometimes from life. As a rule, parsuns were created by painters of the Armory Chamber - S. F. Ushakov, I. Maksimov, I. A. Bezmin, G. Odolsky, M. I. Choglokov and others. The term parsun extends to similar phenomena in the painting of Ukraine and Belarus (Portrait Konstantin Ostrogsky, 1st half of the 17th century).

You may be interested in knowing the lexical, literal or figurative meaning of these words:

A sketchbook is a small (wooden) box with accessories for...
Jewelry art - (from the German Juwel gem), manufacturing...
Art Nouveau - (from German Jugend - “youth”). Style name...
Yamato-e, school Japanese painting. Formed in 1112 centuries. ...
Madonna of the Rocks - (“Madonna in the Grotto”). Leonardo da Vinci, 1508, ...
And secco - (Italian a secco - dry), a variety...

“Parsuna”: concept, features

In the 17th century, when secular trends intensified in Russia and a keen interest in European tastes and habits emerged, artists began to turn to Western European experience. In such a situation, when there is a search for portraiture, the appearance of a parsuna is quite natural.

“Parsuna” (a distorted “person”) is translated from Latin as “person”, not “man” (homo), but a certain type - “king”, “nobleman”, “ambassador” - with an emphasis on the concept of gender. .

Parsuns - secular ceremonial portraits in the interior - were perceived as a sign of prestige. The Russian nobility needed to adapt to new cultural trends that were penetrating traditional forms of everyday life. The parsuna was well suited for the ceremonial rituals of solemn court etiquette, cultivated in the princely-boyar environment, and for demonstrating the high position of the model.

The parsun, first of all, emphasized that the person depicted belonged to a high rank. The heroes appear in lush attire and in rich interiors. The private and individual are almost not revealed in them.

The main thing in Parsun has always been subordination to class norms: there is so much significance and imposingness in the characters. The artists' attention is focused not on the face, but on the pose of the person depicted, rich details, accessories, images of coats of arms, and inscriptions.

The art of "parsuns" of the 17th century

Already in the 11th-13th centuries, images of historical figures - temple builders - appeared on the walls of cathedrals: Prince Yaroslav the Wise with his family, Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich presenting a model of the temple to Christ. Starting from the middle of the 16th century, icons appeared with still very conventional images of living members of the royal family.

Portrait images in the icons of the second half of the 17th century found themselves at the crossroads of man’s ascent to the divine, and the descent of the divine to the human. The icon painters of the Armory, relying on their own aesthetic canons, created a new type of face of the Savior Not Made by Hands, distinguished by the definiteness of its human appearance. The image of “The Savior Not Made by Hands” of the 1670s by Simon Ushakov can be considered a program for this direction.

As court artists, icon painters could not imagine the appearance of the “King of Heaven,” bypassing the well-known features of the “king of the earth.” Many of the masters of this trend known to us (Simon Ushakov, Karp Zolotarev, Ivan Refusitsky) were portrait painters of the royal court, which they themselves proudly described in their treatises and petitions.

The creation of royal portraits, and then portraits of representatives of the church hierarchy and court circles, became a fundamentally new step in the culture of Rus'. In 1672, the “Titular Book” was created, which collected a number of portrait miniatures. These are images of Russian tsars, patriarchs, as well as foreign representatives of the supreme nobility, dead and living (they were painted from life).

The Russian viewer had the opportunity to see for the first time the famous portrait of Ivan the Terrible, brought to Russia, which ended up in Denmark at the end of the 17th century.

The collection of the State Museum of Fine Arts (Copenhagen) contains a series of four portraits of horsemen. The series, representing two Russian tsars - Mikhail Fedorovich and Alexei Mikhailovich - and two legendary eastern rulers, came to Denmark no later than 1696; the portraits originally belonged to the royal Kunstkamera, a collection of rarities and curiosities. Two of them - Mikhail Fedorovich and Alexey Mikhailovich - are presented at the exhibition.

A picturesque portrait of the last third of the 17th century - the 1700s is the main section of the exhibition. The picturesque parsuna is both the heir to the spiritual and visual traditions of the Russian Middle Ages and the ancestor of the secular portrait, a phenomenon of the New Age.

Notable are textbook monuments, such as the image of Alexei Mikhailovich “in a large outfit” (late 1670 - early 1680s, State Historical Museum), L.K. Naryshkina (late 17th century, State Historical Museum), V.F. Lyutkina (1697, State Historical Museum) and others.

Of particular interest is the recently discovered, comprehensively researched and restored portrait of Patriarch Joachim Karp Zolotarev (1678, Tobolsk Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve). It is currently the earliest signed and dated work among the Parsuns, who are mostly anonymous.

Although parsuns represent a fundamentally unique material, there are also special rarities among them. One of them is a taffeta portrait of Patriarch Nikon (1682, State Historical Museum). The portrait is an applique of silk fabrics and paper, and only the face and hands are painted.

Portraits of foreign artists who worked at the royal court during the period of Rus''s introduction to the values ​​of the artistic culture of the New Age were of exceptional importance for Russian masters as models that they sought to imitate.

This group of pictorial portraits has its own rarity - the famous portrait of Patriarch Nikon with the clergy, painted in the early 1660s (State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum “New Jerusalem”). This is the earliest known painting portrait of the 17th century, created on Russian soil, the only surviving lifetime portrait of Patriarch Nikon and the only group portrait of that era that has come down to us. The group portrait of Patriarch Nikon with the clergy is a whole visual encyclopedia of patriarchal and church-monastic life of that time.

Of great interest is the exhibited complex of monuments, united by the name Preobrazhenskaya series. It includes a group of portrait images commissioned by Peter I for his new Preobrazhensky Palace. The creation of the series dates back to 1692-1700, and the authorship is attributed to unknown Russian masters of the Armory Chamber. The characters of the main core of the series are participants in the “Most Drunken, Extravagant Council of the All-Joking Prince-Pope,” a satirical institution created by Peter I. The members of the “cathedral” consisted of people of noble families from the Tsar’s inner circle. In comparison with pure parsuna, the portraits of the series are distinguished by greater emotional and facial relaxation, picturesqueness and other spiritual charge. In them one can see a connection with the grotesque stream in Western European baroque painting of the 17th century. It is no coincidence that researchers no longer call this group Parsuna, but only talk about the traditions of Parsuna at the end of the 17th century.

A strange duality is inherent in the large parsuna “Portrait of Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich” (1686, State Historical Museum), made in the tradition of icon painting. The face of the young king is painted three-dimensionally, and the robes and cartouches are designed flatly. The divine power of the king is emphasized by the halo around his head and the image of the Savior Not Made by Hands at the top. There is a special charm in the timid, inept Parsuns, in whom we see a sign of the times.