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The Ethnology Notebooks. 2024. № 2 (182), 281—294

UDK 75.071.046.3»15»(477.83-22)Вовча

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/

THE ARTISTRY OF AN ANONYMOUS ICON PAINTER FROM THE VILLAGE OF VOVCHA IN THE LAST QUARTER OF THE 16TH CENTURY

HELYTOVYCH Maria

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5839-9585
  • Candidate of Arts, Associate Professor,
  • Lead Researcher,
  • Andrey Sheptytski National Museum in Lviv,
  • 20, Svobody avenue, 79000, Lviv, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: helytovychm@yahoo.com

Abstract. This study presents for the first time a comprehensive overview of the renowned artistic legacy of an anonymous icon painter, conditionally referred to in literature as the «icon master from the village of Vovcha». Active in the Boykivshchyna region during the last quarter of the 16th century, the painter is proposed to be classified among the most original creative figures in Western Ukrainian painting of that epoch, representing its so-called folk line. His works provide vivid examples for characterizing the iconography of the time, particularly the transformations that Ukrainian icon painting underwent in the last quarter of the 16th century. The icons are systematically categorized by their place of origin and thematic content. Based on three dozen artifacts housed in museums across Ukraine, Poland, and Slovakia, the foundational characteristics of individual artistic expression, peculiarities of iconography, and thematic repertoire are traced. The works are examined within the context of one of the major stylistic trends of the second half of the 16th century to which they belong. The «Master of Icons from Vovcha» represents a segment of painting from the relatively few iconographers whose works retained ancient Byzantine traditions for the longest time. At the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century, the search for new artistic expressions became evident in Ukrainian icon painting, oriented towards the new Western European artistic culture.

Keywords: icon, master, tradition, iconography, 16th century.

Received 7.04.2025

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