Город Владимир Путешествие по древним городам Владимирской земли Старый Владимир Old Russian Towns Памятники архитектуры Музеи Музеи, экспозиции

Город Суздаль История Суздаля Герб суздаля Архитектура Суздаля Музеи Суздаля

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After the alterations carried out in 1528-1530 the cathedral appears to have remained without wall paint­ings and in 1577 it was damaged by fire. It received new frescoes in 1635-1636 which were "restored", i.e., re­painted, on several occasions - in 1775, 1818 and 1850. The paintings on the west wall were entirely destroyed and most of the others were heavily painted over and have not yet been restored making it difficult to study their original style and subject matter. They seem to have been better preserved on the upper parts of the cathedral.

It is well worth taking a look at what remains of the seventeenth-century frescoes. The vaulted ceiling of the north narthex is devoted to the exaltation of the Virgin Mary to whom the cathedral is dedicated. The paintings on the left half of the north wall show the half-length figures of apostles in ornamental medallions with a de­corative band beneath them. The same theme of the exal­tation of the Virgin Mary is developed in the painting on the south narthex where the original frescoes are to be found on the lower section of the west wall. These show beautiful flying angels with trumpets and the fig­ures of two people climbing trees. On the southwest pil­lar under the dome there is a fragment of the 1635-1636 frescoes which the nineteenth-century "restorers" simply renovated here and there without making any altera­tions. There are a few more fragments of the seven­teenth-century murals in other parts of the main body of the cathedral, such as a group of the righteous from the Last Judgment on the north side of the southwest pillar and the splendid half-length figures of saints in large medallions on the right side of the central apse. One of the most beautiful of these is the picture of Archdeacon Stefan dressed in white robes with greenish folds in a glowing medallion of yellow ochre. These fragments in­dicate that the cathedral was originally decorated with large compositions executed in austere colours reflecting the great traditions of early fresco painting.

The interior of the cathedral was altered at the end of the seventeenth century to the form in which we see it today. On the instructions of Metropolitan Illarion the old choir-gallery was removed and the tombstones which had stood under the gallery on the graves of prin­ces and bishops, about forty in all, were also taken away. The entrance to the choir-gallery was blocked up and the first floor of the narthex was demolished. At the same time the old windows were widened. Thus the beautiful old building was ruthlessly adapted to suit new architectural tastes.

The present iconostasis was also commissioned by Illarion at the end of the seventeenth century. Its style is in keeping with old traditions however. The design is simple, with no traces of the sumptuous extravagance typical of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the most important element in the iconostasis was not the icons but their rich mounting. The iconostasis in the Suzdal cathedral is still imbued with the strict hier-atical concept of subordination to the supreme power of God and his earthly rulers. It is simple, but impressive, and looks like a flat wall covered with sheets of gilded silver forming a shining background against which the severe figures of the saints stand with their heads bowed reverently towards the central point occupied by the icon of Christ. The icon-painters who included Grigory Zinovyev, one of the tsar's gifted artists, were still mas­ters of the art of simple impressive lines undisturbed by the excessive use of small detail and a riot of colour.

The best view of the iconostasis as a whole is from the west wall, where it immediately strikes the spectator with full force. Some of the painting was renewed at the end of the eighteenth century.

In the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centu­ries when the cathedral was undergoing large-scale re­building and alteration, a number of fine new buildings were erected near it forming the group which we see today.

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