The Koren Picture-Bible (1692-1696)
Encyclopedia
The Koren Picture-Bible is a series of 36 woodcut
s illustrating Genesis and Revelation
. It is the outstanding example of Russian woodcut artistry in the 17th century and of the "Koren-style" woodcut, which is characteristic of the best of the religious and secular popular prints or lubok
, pl. lubki in the first half of the 18th century. The Koren Bible may be considered an example of the (misnamed) Biblia Pauperum
. Twenty blocks illustrate the Creation and the Life of Adam and Eve, while sixteen illustrate Revelation. The Koren Bible survives in a single copy. The woodblocks of the Koren Bible were engraved by Vasily Koren of Moscow. A.G Sakovich cites evidence that the artist or designer was Gury Nikitin Kineshemtsev, whose abbreviated name appears on several of the Apocalypse blocks.
iconography. The connection to Prokopii is evident, not just deduced from the close correspondence of the iconography in most of the pictures, but from the fact that each of Kineshemtsev's pictures bears the number of the corresponding print in the Prokopii Apocalypse. In one instance,where Kineshemtsev combined elements from two pictures of Prokopii's series, that print bears both numbers. Although Kineshemtsev more or less follows Prokopii's iconography in all his drawings, his artistry is unique and far superior to Prokopii's. Prokopii can be said to have done half the work of adapting Dürer to the Old Russian style, while Kineshemtsev made of them "freski-lubki." For example,the figures become more icon-like and certain folk design elements are introduced, a grainfield is substituted for a cityscape, and the prophets Enoch and Elijah are introduced, .
artist of Russia in the seventeenth century and head of the Kostroma Brotherhood of Painters until his death in 1691. He took the texts for the Koren Bible from the first Slavonic Bible translation, published in Moscow in 1663. He also incorporated non-traditional elements from the Russian edition of the Short Palaea, which includes considerable apocryphal material. Only with A.G. Sakovich's study was Vasily Koren identified. He turned up in the tax rolls as a resident of Moscow's Мещанская Слобода or Tradesman's District, an independent craftsman of modest means. He came there in 1661 when he was perhaps twenty, from Belorussian territory seized from Poland. After 1692 the Korens disappeared from the Moscow tax rolls. Perhaps they left Moscow following a son's legal troubles in 1692. It is possible that they went to the Upper Volga region, and that Koren cut the blocks there. The Koren style has long been associated with the Moscow marketplace, but many things made elsewhere were marketed in Moscow, and Koren no doubt had ties there. At any rate Koren takes credit in an unusually prominent manner, inscribing "Василии Корен рєзал сие доски" (Vasily Koren cut these blocks)on several of them.
The most distinctive interpretive rendering in the Koren Bible is the Adam and Eve
story: that it was the violence of Cain against Abel—and not the disobedience to God of Adam and Eve—that was the downfall of humanity. Adam and Eve are shown at their creation with halos, losing them only temporarily when they sin and are expelled from Eden, but regaining them when they repent. They are shown living, hallowed, into old age. Thus the moral responsibility for bringing evil into the world is displaced to Cain, who envied, hated and killed his brother Abel, and lied to God. It makes the taking of life the highest crime. This does not fit with the moral stance of the Old Believers, whose leader, Protopop Avvakum, emphasized that, while the rest of creation is called into being "by the word" of God, Adam and Eve are made of clay. Their disobedience—eating from a forbidden fig tree and their resultant intoxication—leads to a sin of the flesh. The Koren Bible emphasizes that light rules both day (sun) and night (stars). And though the devil makes his bid for power, God casts him down into the abyss (Hell
), which is represented by a cutaway space at the bottom corner of the picture, indicating a place beneath the surface of the earth.
There are other reasons not to associate the Koren Bible directly with the Old Believers
or Schismatics, yet just publishing an Apocalypse at a time when masses of one's countrymen were awaiting the end of the world would seem to acknowledge or make some statement of solidarity with them. While the Russian Orthodox Church
, backed by the power of the Tsar, was thundering that one owes obedience above all to God, Church and Tsar, the Koren Bible would have it that murder was the greatest sin—and not the disobedience to God of Adam and Eve. It specifically edits out a tiara seen on Antichrist
in Prokopii's Apocalypse—a tiara which might have been taken to signify an Old Believer representation of the tsar or patriarch. On the other hand, Christ leading the Heavenly Host wears just a cap. A two-fingered blessing gesture might have been taken as defiance of the new Orthodoxy, which called for a three-fingered sign. There are several two-fingered blessing gestures depicted, but there are also four именословно (liturgical) blessings, considered proper by both.
Sakovich believes that the Koren Bible Apocalypse is shaped to speak against the "millenarians," i.e. the Old Believers or other sectarians who felt obliged to resist the authority of "the forces of Antichrist." She sees an affirmation that good will triumph in the end, but that it is God's affair, not man's, to bring this about. Briusova assures us that Kineshemtsev's Old Believer sympathies are well-established by his treatment of the Apocalypse, his association with other Old Believer sympathizers, and by his refusal to do the frescoes for Novo-Spassky Monastery, whose Father Superior was noted for his persecution of Old Believers. However, Gury Nikitin's treatment of Genesis departs from both Orthodox and Old Believer views. The injunction against violence may be addressed to both sides—as was Erasmus's response to the struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism in the West.
The last print of the Genesis series concerns Cain and his line and makes the point that real evil, originating in his unrepented crime, was perpetuated by Cain and his son Enoch
in the building of cities in the land of Nod. This revision also provides Cain with a suitable fate: accidental shooting by his blind "brother" Lamekh. Here man is taken further from God. This is a striking view in the context of the thriving cities of the Upper Volga which nourished Kineshemtsev and his merchant-patrons. Yet perhaps precisely an urbanizing society, under the stress of change, sees its moral challenges as emanating from cities.
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
s illustrating Genesis and Revelation
Revelation
In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing, through active or passive communication with a supernatural or a divine entity...
. It is the outstanding example of Russian woodcut artistry in the 17th century and of the "Koren-style" woodcut, which is characteristic of the best of the religious and secular popular prints or lubok
Lubok
A lubok is a Russian popular print, characterized by simple graphics and narratives derived from literature, religious stories and popular tales. Lubki prints were used as decoration in houses and inns...
, pl. lubki in the first half of the 18th century. The Koren Bible may be considered an example of the (misnamed) Biblia Pauperum
Biblia pauperum
The Biblia pauperum was a tradition of picture Bibles beginning in the later Middle Ages. They sought to portray the historical books of the Bible visually. Unlike a simple "illustrated Bible", where the pictures are subordinated to the text, these Bibles placed the illustration in the centre,...
. Twenty blocks illustrate the Creation and the Life of Adam and Eve, while sixteen illustrate Revelation. The Koren Bible survives in a single copy. The woodblocks of the Koren Bible were engraved by Vasily Koren of Moscow. A.G Sakovich cites evidence that the artist or designer was Gury Nikitin Kineshemtsev, whose abbreviated name appears on several of the Apocalypse blocks.
Sources of Iconography
The Koren Bible has as its immediate prototype that of the Kievan, Iereia Prokopii's, apocalyptic woodcut series (1646–1662). Prokopii's Apocalypse in turn follows the Luther-Piscator iconography, and the Piscator Bible draws on the original Albrecht DürerAlbrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
iconography. The connection to Prokopii is evident, not just deduced from the close correspondence of the iconography in most of the pictures, but from the fact that each of Kineshemtsev's pictures bears the number of the corresponding print in the Prokopii Apocalypse. In one instance,where Kineshemtsev combined elements from two pictures of Prokopii's series, that print bears both numbers. Although Kineshemtsev more or less follows Prokopii's iconography in all his drawings, his artistry is unique and far superior to Prokopii's. Prokopii can be said to have done half the work of adapting Dürer to the Old Russian style, while Kineshemtsev made of them "freski-lubki." For example,the figures become more icon-like and certain folk design elements are introduced, a grainfield is substituted for a cityscape, and the prophets Enoch and Elijah are introduced, .
Artist and Engraver
Gury Nikitin Kineshemtsev was the premier frescoFresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
artist of Russia in the seventeenth century and head of the Kostroma Brotherhood of Painters until his death in 1691. He took the texts for the Koren Bible from the first Slavonic Bible translation, published in Moscow in 1663. He also incorporated non-traditional elements from the Russian edition of the Short Palaea, which includes considerable apocryphal material. Only with A.G. Sakovich's study was Vasily Koren identified. He turned up in the tax rolls as a resident of Moscow's Мещанская Слобода or Tradesman's District, an independent craftsman of modest means. He came there in 1661 when he was perhaps twenty, from Belorussian territory seized from Poland. After 1692 the Korens disappeared from the Moscow tax rolls. Perhaps they left Moscow following a son's legal troubles in 1692. It is possible that they went to the Upper Volga region, and that Koren cut the blocks there. The Koren style has long been associated with the Moscow marketplace, but many things made elsewhere were marketed in Moscow, and Koren no doubt had ties there. At any rate Koren takes credit in an unusually prominent manner, inscribing "Василии Корен рєзал сие доски" (Vasily Koren cut these blocks)on several of them.
Relation to the Schism
The Koren Bible contains some uncanonical views, raising the question of its relationship to the Raskol or Schism in Russian Orthodoxy and the violent suppression of it in the 1670s-1690's. Sakovich finds the Koren Bible strongly opposed to the rebels. However, V.G. Briusova, the premier scholar of 17th century Russian fresco art, assures us that Kineshemtsev and his colleagues and merchant patrons were deeply sympathetic to the rebels.The most distinctive interpretive rendering in the Koren Bible is the Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...
story: that it was the violence of Cain against Abel—and not the disobedience to God of Adam and Eve—that was the downfall of humanity. Adam and Eve are shown at their creation with halos, losing them only temporarily when they sin and are expelled from Eden, but regaining them when they repent. They are shown living, hallowed, into old age. Thus the moral responsibility for bringing evil into the world is displaced to Cain, who envied, hated and killed his brother Abel, and lied to God. It makes the taking of life the highest crime. This does not fit with the moral stance of the Old Believers, whose leader, Protopop Avvakum, emphasized that, while the rest of creation is called into being "by the word" of God, Adam and Eve are made of clay. Their disobedience—eating from a forbidden fig tree and their resultant intoxication—leads to a sin of the flesh. The Koren Bible emphasizes that light rules both day (sun) and night (stars). And though the devil makes his bid for power, God casts him down into the abyss (Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
), which is represented by a cutaway space at the bottom corner of the picture, indicating a place beneath the surface of the earth.
There are other reasons not to associate the Koren Bible directly with the Old Believers
Old Believers
In the context of Russian Orthodox church history, the Old Believers separated after 1666 from the official Russian Orthodox Church as a protest against church reforms introduced by Patriarch Nikon between 1652–66...
or Schismatics, yet just publishing an Apocalypse at a time when masses of one's countrymen were awaiting the end of the world would seem to acknowledge or make some statement of solidarity with them. While the Russian Orthodox Church
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...
, backed by the power of the Tsar, was thundering that one owes obedience above all to God, Church and Tsar, the Koren Bible would have it that murder was the greatest sin—and not the disobedience to God of Adam and Eve. It specifically edits out a tiara seen on Antichrist
Antichrist
The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to a leader who fulfills Biblical prophecies concerning an adversary of Christ, while resembling him in a deceptive manner...
in Prokopii's Apocalypse—a tiara which might have been taken to signify an Old Believer representation of the tsar or patriarch. On the other hand, Christ leading the Heavenly Host wears just a cap. A two-fingered blessing gesture might have been taken as defiance of the new Orthodoxy, which called for a three-fingered sign. There are several two-fingered blessing gestures depicted, but there are also four именословно (liturgical) blessings, considered proper by both.
Sakovich believes that the Koren Bible Apocalypse is shaped to speak against the "millenarians," i.e. the Old Believers or other sectarians who felt obliged to resist the authority of "the forces of Antichrist." She sees an affirmation that good will triumph in the end, but that it is God's affair, not man's, to bring this about. Briusova assures us that Kineshemtsev's Old Believer sympathies are well-established by his treatment of the Apocalypse, his association with other Old Believer sympathizers, and by his refusal to do the frescoes for Novo-Spassky Monastery, whose Father Superior was noted for his persecution of Old Believers. However, Gury Nikitin's treatment of Genesis departs from both Orthodox and Old Believer views. The injunction against violence may be addressed to both sides—as was Erasmus's response to the struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism in the West.
The last print of the Genesis series concerns Cain and his line and makes the point that real evil, originating in his unrepented crime, was perpetuated by Cain and his son Enoch
Enoch (son of Cain)
Enoch, son of Cain, , after whom Cain named the first city he founded, is not the same as the Enoch who was an ancestor of Noah.This Enoch was a son of Cain, grandson of Adam, and father of Irad....
in the building of cities in the land of Nod. This revision also provides Cain with a suitable fate: accidental shooting by his blind "brother" Lamekh. Here man is taken further from God. This is a striking view in the context of the thriving cities of the Upper Volga which nourished Kineshemtsev and his merchant-patrons. Yet perhaps precisely an urbanizing society, under the stress of change, sees its moral challenges as emanating from cities.