Chersonesus in the Crimea, and for this reason the name of Khorsuny was given to the ancient icons of Russia in later times. The Russian icon is, therefore, however its development may have been affected by other influences, Byzantine in its origin, and from thence its history must be traced.

Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov, who died in February 1925, soon after his eightieth birthday, was the foremost student of his time of Byzantine art in all its extensions. His first important work was a history of Byzantine art in illuminated manuscripts (1876), and its developments in Italy, Sicily, Macedonia, Syria, and Palestine claimed his attention in turn. His study

of Russian Antiquities, produced in conjunction with Count I. I. Tolstoy, was the first trustworthy account of the older period of Russian art. At the beginning of this century he devoted his whole energies to the study of the icon, in conjunction with his friend N. P. Likhachev, whose collection of icons, fully illustrated in Materials for the History of Russian Icon-painting' (1906), is the nucleus of the Russian Museum at Leningrad. Kondakov's first publication on the subject was a reissue of the old guides for icon-painters with an iconography of Our Saviour (1905), and he followed this later with two volumes of an inconography of Our Lady (1913 and 1915) carried to the 13th century. The volume before us, most ably translated and edited by Prof. Minns, is shortened from a much larger book intended mainly to illustrate the Russian Museum for the benefit of Russians,' and though it has received 'some adaptation for Western readers,' nothing less than a thorough recasting would make it into a complete history of the Russian icon suitable for them. A great number of things which the non-Russian reader would wish to know are never mentioned; Prof. Kondakov, as is the wont of 19th-century specialists, is scornful of traditional origins, never alluding to one except to dismiss it summarily, but quite apart from their possible truth, these stories are an indispensable part of the history of the Russian icon, and need to be retold to the Western reader if he is to understand anything about their place in Russian art and life. No doubt diligent search of the book, assisted by a useful index, would tell the

reader many facts about the ordinary icon, but he will find nowhere a plain statement of its size, what it looks like, how it is made, and so on. An elementary and popular work on the subject has yet to be written: may we hope for it from the pen of Prof. Minns? A more serious objection, from the present writer's point of view, is that Kondakov regards icon-painting as an art which has degenerated into a handicraft, whereas at all times in Russia it has been a handicraft which has occasionally thrown up an artist; in his discussion of foreign origins and new influences he has undervalued the unifying power of a living tradition, constantly bringing these new elements into harmony with the past.

The study of the Russian icon is comparatively recent : by the end of last century a number of collections had been formed, and a rough attempt at classification made. But their artistic interest was hardly suspected—they were treated as a branch of Russian archæology; covered as they were with thick layers of varnish and the smoke of centuries, little more than their subjects could be seen. But when after much labour and minute care' a number of them were cleaned and exhibited, the dark and smoke-begrimed icon shone out in bright colours and harmonious shades. It was a revelation. In 1899 Riepin, writing of icons and acknowledging the sincerity shown in the best of them, could see in them only disfigurement of the subject without the least elementary knowledge of painting,' and Bunin could call them 'icons, black planks, poor symbols of God's might.' No one had dreamed of the beauty and gay colour now brought to light, and enthusiasm among Russian art-lovers rose to a very high pitch of extravagance-an extravagance which the writer must own he was tempted to share on his first sight of a representative collection in what is now the Russian Museum of Leningrad.

In 1905 another avenue for the exploration of the history of the Russian icon was opened up, of which Prof. Kondakov does not seem to have made much use. An imperial decree in that year granted a modified freedom of conscience to certain Russian sects, among them that of the Old Believers-a conservative body which had separated from the Orthodox Church in the

17th century in consequence of the reforms then introduced. They had been the object of severe repression, and their icons, of ancient design and many of them very old, were confiscated and destroyed whenever they were found, so that it became a common practice to paint over the real icon a modern one which conformed to Orthodox pattern, especially among the Moscow merchant class, while the peasants endeavoured to hide theirs from view. Some of the feelings of the Old Believers about the Orthodox, and their treatment by the latter, can be obtained from Leescov's tale 'The Sealed Angel,' in the fine translation by the Hon. Mrs Tollemache published under the title 'Russian Sketches,' to which we shall have occasion later to refer. When the edict of toleration was published these icons were cleaned or brought out of hiding, and thus were seen for the first time. A large number of them were presented to the new Old Believer Cathedral church in Moscow of The Assumption, including some 15th-century panels for the Royal Door of the iconostas.

A third, and still more important, stage in the history of icon-study was brought about by the removal in 1920 of the jewels and ornaments of the precious metals with which the more celebrated icons were covered, for the benefit of the famine-stricken provinces of Russia. For the first time for centuries, it was possible to see them as pictures, and to give them the expert care which their priceless value demanded. A commission, at the head of which was Prof. Igor Grabar, the historian of Russian Art and Director of the Tretyakov Art Gallery, was appointed to take charge of them as historical monuments, and, after due study of modern methods, to clean them and remove the coats of discoloured varnish and paint which overlay the original painting. So far as it has gone the result of this commission has entirely justified its appointment. The general result (of cleaning, etc.) is to show that the traditional age of the original icon is often correct, but that repainting has changed not only detail or colouring but general design so completely that the surface which later generations have known bears hardly any relation to the original painting' (p. ix).

Sir Martin Conway, who has seen the cleaners at

work, and speaks highly of their skill and patience, writes even more strongly :

"The repainting of icons, which has gone on for centuries, has been a very different affair from the ordinary repaintings and retouchings which the pictures of the Old Masters have had to endure at the hands of Museum directors and private owners. An icon, for instance of the Virgin and Child, may have been wholly repainted as many as six or seven times with so little regard to the original design that in the end it may have come to depict a Head of Christ or of some Saint. I saw several icons which had been cleaned in strips, leaving in succession a band of each of the repaintings upon the original picture, and it was amazing to see how recklessly successive painters had dealt with the work delivered into their hands' ('Art Treasures,' p. 43).

There is no doubt that a certain amount of repainting has been absolutely necessary even in the earliest periods of Russian ecclesiastical history, a necessity arising from the method of painting and the use of candles and incense. As early as 1080 A.D. the Metropolitan John II is said to have ordered that all old icons in use should be repainted, and there are other similar orders since, but this repainting has added terribly to the difficulty of writing the history of the icon. Many of Kondakov's pronouncements on early Russian icons will have to be reviewed in the light of the knowledge we are slowly gaining, and even before this book was published, Prof. Minns was able to correct him in the very important case of the Vladimir Mother of God.

The origin of the custom of icon-painting is traced by Kondakov to the Egyptian portraits of the dead which were deposited with their mummies, of which examples are to be seen in the National Gallery and the British Museum. They were produced by the encaustic method, that is, by the manipulation of heated coloured wax with a spatula on a wooden panel. Such portraits of martyrs and confessors, laid on their tombs or in shrines, attracted in due course a part of the honour done to their memory, and we find the icon as an adjunct to worship as early as Chrysostom or Gregory of Nyssa. The fact that the icons of the Saviour, the Virgin, and the saints always face the worshipper is an inheritance from these Egyptian portraits. Very few

early icons exist; there are two pilgrims' icons brought from Sinai or Egypt at Kiev, both of the sixth century, one of St John the Baptist, the other of Our Lady. Of the latter, the oldest icon known, we should have expected a fuller description in this place as Kondakov's Iconography is not translated.

The iconoclastic controversy (726-843 A.D.) cuts right across the history of the Byzantine icon. We have no single example of Byzantine icon-painting older than the ninth century,' every painting of an earlier date was systematically destroyed. A few ancient icons from the East may have survived. Kondakov thinks that the icon of the Virgin carried off from Constantinople in 1204 and preserved in St Mark's at Venice under the name of 'Nicopoea' is pre-iconoclastic, though some Western critics assert that it is a tenth-century copy of a fifthcentury painting. The icon of Our Saviour' in the Lateran Chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum at Rome is also considered pre-iconoclastic, while the icon of the Mother of God in Santa Maria Maggiore has a traditional history as far back as 871 A.D.

None of these pre-iconoclastic icons enters into the history of Russian art; Russians would see and copy no icons till the tenth and eleventh centuries, and of these we have fortunately some examples remaining. The chief among them is the famous Vladimir Mother of God at Moscow, formerly in the Uspenski Sobor, now in the Historical Museum. It is said to have been brought in a ship from Constantinople to Vishgorod near Kiev, removed from there to Suzdal in 1155, brought to Vladimir in 1161 on the completion of the Cathedral there by Andrew Bogolyubsky, and removed to Moscow in 1395. It is the Palladium of the Russian State, incomparably the most famous of its wonder-working icons. Kondakov, founding his objection on the iconography of its subject, dated it as 14th century; tradition carried no weight with him, or rather its existence was an argument against its truth, a position too common with critics of his generation-it is only of recent years that we have learnt to inquire what lies at the base of tradition. In the case of the Vladimir Mother of God, cleaning has disclosed three re-paintings-the first in the middle of the 13th century, possibly after its stripping