377. Village Church near Novogorod. (From a Drawing by A. Durand.)
As far as can be gathered from the sketch-books of travellers or their somewhat meagre notes, there are few towns of Russia of any importance during the Middle Ages which do not possess churches said to have been founded in the first centuries after its conversion to Christianity; though whether the existing buildings are the originals, or how far they may have been altered and modernised, will not be known till some archæologist visits the country, directing his attention to this particular inquiry. Although the Russians probably built as great a number of churches as any nation of Christendom, yet like the Greek churches they were all undoubtedly small. Kief is said, even in the age of Yaroslaf, to have contained 400 churches; Vladimir nearly as many. Moscow, in the year 1600, had 400 (thirty-seven of which were in the Kremlin), and now possesses many more.
Many of the village churches still retain their ancient features; the example here given of one near Novogorod belongs probably to the 12th century, and is not later than the 13th. It retains its shafted apse, its bulb-shaped Tartar dome, and, as is always the case in Russia, a square detached belfry—though in this instance apparently more modern than the edifice itself. Woodcut No. [378] is the type of a great number of the old village churches, which, like the houses of the peasants, are of wood, generally of logs laid one on the other, with their round ends intersecting at the angles, like the log-huts of America at the present day. As architectural objects they are of course insignificant, but still they are characteristic and picturesque.
378. Village Church near Tzarskoe Selo. (From Durand.)
Internally all the arrangements of the stone churches are such as are appropriate for pictorial rather than for sculptural decoration. The pillars are generally large cylinders covered with portraits of saints, and the capitals are plain, cushion-like rolls with painted ornaments. The vaults are not relieved by ribs, or by any projections that could interfere with the coloured decorations. In the wooden churches the construction is plainly shown, and of course is far lighter. In them also colour almost wholly supersedes carving. The peculiarities of these two styles are well illustrated in the two Woodcuts, Nos. [379] and [380], from churches near Kostroma in Eastern Russia. Both belong to the Middle Ages, and both are favourable specimens of their respective classes. In these examples, as indeed in every Greek church, the principal object of ecclesiastical furniture is the iconostasis or image-bearer, corresponding to the rood-screen that separates the choir from the nave in Latin churches. The rood-screen, however, never assumed in the West the importance which the iconostasis always possessed in the East. There it separates and hides from the church the sanctuary and the altar, from which the laity are wholly excluded. Within it the elements are consecrated, in the presence of the priests alone, and are then brought forward to be displayed to the public. On this screen, as performing so important a part, the Greek architects and artists have lavished the greatest amount of care and design, and in every Greek church, from St. Mark’s at Venice to the extreme confines of Russia, it is the object that first attracts attention on entering. It is, in fact, so important that it must be regarded rather as an object of architecture than of church furniture.
379. Interior of Church at Kostroma. (From Durand.)
The architectural details of these Russian churches must be pronounced to be bad; for, even making every allowance for difference of taste, there is neither beauty of form nor constructive elegance in any part. The most characteristic and pleasing features are the five domes that generally ornament the roofs, and which, when they rise from the extrados, or uncovered outside of the vaults, certainly look well. Too frequently, however, the vault is covered by a wooden roof, through which the domes then peer in a manner by no means to be admired. The details of the lower part are generally bad. The view (Woodcut No. [381]) of a doorway of the Troitska monastery, near Moscow, is sufficiently characteristic. Its most remarkable feature is the baluster-like pillars, of which the Russians seem so fond. These support an arch with a pendant in the middle—a sort of architectural tour de force which the Russian architects practised everywhere and in every age, but which is far from being beautiful in itself, or from possessing any architectural propriety. The great roll over the door is also unpleasant. Indeed, as a general rule, wherever in Russian architecture the details are original, they must be condemned as ugly.