background of the heavens is decorated with gold stars and rosettes. The angels in the
middle zone are heavy, with large facial features, their poses mobile and their knees bent.
The same omophorion is held by the Virgin thoughtfully and by the angel below her,
hands clasped, with a tense expression on its face.
The lower scenes (Figures 7, 8 above) are characterised even more sharply and
expressively. On the left the sea swirls in spiral-shaped waves, the banks are cleaved by
wedge-shaped fractures, the overturned boat is vertical, the white oars forming a cross
and the drowning Demetrios stretches towards his angelic rescuer as if trying to walk
up some invisible steps. In the right-hand scene we see the almost swaying figure of the
youth possessed by an evil spirit, who is supported by his servant, friend, or a member
of his household. The bushes stretch out their sharp leaves, as if in tense expectation. Yet
grace is already descending on the sick man, and the black figure of the exorcised demon
is fleeing towards a black cave.
The most expressive and striking feature of the lower scenes are the gestures of the
angels, their contact with those they are saving. In both cases their agile figures are
full of life, inspiration, while the figures of their “protagonists” are paralysed, awkward
and stiff. According to the tradition of medieval (and not only medieval) Christian art,
the motif of saving, helping, the flowing over of grace, was often depicted by hands
touching. The angel in the left-hand scene is holding Demetrios firmly by the wrist, but
the one in the scene on the right is only stretching out the fingers of its blessing hand to
the sick man’s hand, so that if they do meet it is only the fingertips. By making use of
this motif, the icon painter is, in effect, drawing on the same tradition that was used in
the celebrated representation of the hands of the Creator and Adam stretched out towards
each other in the painting in the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo.
Figure 24. The expulsion of
the Devil from a Tree. Border
detail from “Saint Nicholas
of Myra with scenes from
his life”. First half of the 15th
century. Russian Museum,
Saint Petersburg (from the
hamlet of Ozeriovo).
The fact that the icon belongs to the artistic tradition of Novgorod the Great is evident
at once: from the compressed composition, the decisive generalised contours and the
heavy proportions of the angels’ bulky figures. There is also another sign of drawing on
Novgorodian heritage, one that indicates knowledge of the archaic, popular, artistic layer
in local icon painting of the 14 th century. This is the specifically stiff poses of the figures
being saved—Demetrios and the youth possessed, the angular drawing of their figures,
particularly their enlarged hands, and above all the gesture of the youth possessed, his
raised hand with the palm facing the spectator. The unusual characterisation of these
personages is intended to show that they belong to a different world, a sinful, sick,
unenlightened world void of beauty and harmony. They have yet to pass into the world
of grace, in accordance with the prayers of Saint Nicholas, as the inscriptions say. The
raised palm of the youth possessed recalls vividly the gesture of “acclamation” which
goes back to the art of late Antiquity and the early Christian period and denotes the
receipt of information, its approval. A similar gesture is found in a marginal scene on the
14 th century Novgorodian icon of “Saint Nicholas with Scenes from his Life” from the
country church of Ozeryovo (Saint Petersburg, Russian Museum) depicting the “Cutting
of the Tree” (or “Exorcism of the Demon from the Well”) (Figure 24). 40 The youth in this
scene personifies all the inhabitants of the village, from which Saint Nicholas exorcised
the evil spirit. He still has to enter the world of harmony and grace, hence his angular
contours and stiff pose. He approves the coming changes, hence his gesture of approval.
40
I.D. Soloviova, (ed.). Святой Николай Мирликийский в произведениях XII-XIX столетий из собрания Русского
музея, (St. Petersburg, 2006)
Journal of Icon Studies
17