Russian Icons

The idea of ​​the exhibition, curated by Lilija Evseeva and Julija Buzykina, came from a desire to tell the profound similarities between Eastern and Western Christian ideals. In both cases, prayer and mercy are fundamental expressions of divine service and an essential part of life. Indeed, the latter and the former are the common ideals of Christianity. This is highlighted by the Russian icon in a city - Bari - where the relics of St. Nicholas are stored, making it one of the focal points of the Orthodox Church in the West. Thus, the exhibition displays the icon of St. Nicholas of Myra, along with another 36 icons dated between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on loan from the collections of two museums in Moscow: The Central Andrey Rublev Museum of Ancient Russian Culture and Art and The Museum of Russian Icons. The exhibition also features a work by Vladimir Tatlin, ‘Composition with Transparent Surfaces’ (1916), and a contemporary sculpture, ‘The Mother of God, The Great Panaguya’ by Dmitri Gutov (2012), both of which are housed in private collections.