Dionisius (russian: Диони́сий, variously
transliterated as ''Dionisy'' or ''Dionysiy''; also Dionisius the Wise; c. 1440 – 1502) was acknowledged as a head of the
Moscow school of
icon painters at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries. His style of painting is sometimes termed "the Muscovite
mannerism
Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, ...
".
Work
Dionisy's first important commission was a series of icons for the
Cathedral of the Dormition in the
Moscow Kremlin
The Kremlin ( rus, Московский Кремль, r=Moskovskiy Kreml', p=ˈmɐˈskofskʲɪj krʲemlʲ, t=Moscow Kremlin) is a fortified complex in the center of Moscow founded by the Rurik dynasty. It is the best known of the kremlins (R ...
, executed in 1481. The figures on his icons are famously elongated, the hands and feet are diminutive, and the faces serene and peaceful.
Among his many rich and notable patrons,
Joseph of Volokolamsk
Joseph Volotsky — also known as Joseph of Volotsk or Joseph of Volokolamsk (russian: Ио́сиф Во́лоцкий); secular name Ivan Sanin (russian: Ива́н Са́нин) (1439 or 1440 – September 9, 1515) — was a prominent Russian ...
alone commissioned him to paint more than eighty icons, primarily for the
Joseph-Volokolamsk and Pavel-Obnorsk cloisters.
The most comprehensive and the best preserved work of Dionisy is the monumental
fresco
Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...
painting of the Virgin Nativity Cathedral of the
Ferapontov Monastery (1495–96) in
Vologda Oblast. The frescoes, depicting scenes from the life of the
Virgin in singularly pure and gentle colours, are permeated with a solemn and festal mood.
The work at the Ferapontov was executed by Dionisy in collaboration with his sons and disciples, who continued a Dionisiesque tradition after the master's death. His son Feodosy painted the mural of "''Michael and Joshua before the battle of Jericho''" in the
Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Moscow Kremlin in 1508.
[''Biblical Military Imagery in the Political Culture of Early Modern Russia:The Blessed Host of the Heavenly Tsar'' by Daniel Rowland, ''Medieval Russian Culture'', Vol. 2, ed. Henrik Birnbaum, Michael S. Flier, Daniel Bruce Rowland, (University of California Press, 1994), 193.] As his father did not take part in this important commission, it is thought that he had died shortly before that date.
References
External links
Online museum of Dionisius art
{{authority control
Russian painters
Russian male painters
Russian icon painters
1440s births
1502 deaths
16th-century Russian painters
Medieval Russian artists
Medieval Russian painters