Description

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A critical biography of the most celebrated religious icon painter in medieval Russia.
 
A monk from Moscow, Andrey Rublev (c.1360–c.1430) is heralded as the greatest painter of religious icons and frescos in medieval Russia. Nevertheless, his life remains largely mysterious to historians and devotees alike. In this book, Robin Milner-Gulland provides the first English-language account of the artist’s life as a window into the world of medieval Moscow. Beautifully illustrated with previously unpublished images, Andrey Rublev offers an accessible introduction to the artist’s medieval world and his continuing significance today.
 

About the Author

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Robin Milner-Gulland is emeritus professor of Russian and east European studies at the University of Sussex. His books include Patterns of Russia, also published by Reaktion Books.
 

Praise For…

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“The fifteenth-century monk and iconographer Andrei Rublev’s handful of surviving paintings are arguably the most important items in Russia’s artistic patrimony. Yet only the meagerest scraps of information—copied from a lost grave marker, a burnt manuscript, and the like—have come down to us about their creator. Milner-Gulland has produced the first English monograph on Rublev, admirably sifting through those scraps, placing the artist’s work in the context of medieval Russia, and ruminating on Rublev’s outsized importance. That importance has extended to worshippers of all denominations and generations of Russian artists.”
— New Criterion

“Milner-Gulland takes on the formidable task of synthesizing centuries of debate 
around an artist who is a household
 name in Russia, yet about whom almost nothing is known. He richly illustrates his subject’s innovative process . . . [and] after a thorough exploration of Rublev’s most famous icon, the book devotes two chapters to the painter’s cultural context before diving into a discussion of other artworks variably attributed to him . . . Vibrant illustrations of his paintings and other medieval masterpieces appear throughout.”
— Times Literary Supplement

“Milner-Gulland’s volume is the first English language monograph on the artist who created what is arguably Russia’s most famous medieval icon, The Old Testament Trinity . . . Milner-Gulland deftly synthesizes scholarship from several fields including Russian political and Orthodox Church history and medieval Russian art, presenting a wealth of historic information in a style readily accessible to general readers.”
— ARLIS/NA Reviews

"This is the first book in English about Russia's greatest medieval icon painter. Milner-Gulland makes extensive use of old Russian sources to stitch together the scant evidence about the artist's life - but his engaging overview wears its learning lightly."
— Apollo

"This slim volume is the fruit of a lifetime’s wide-ranging inquiry – linguistic, ethnographical, religious, historical, artistic – into the dynamics of Russian cultural history and its origins, and is a remarkable achievement . . . It is written in Milner-Gulland’s characteristically lucid style, enhanced with personal anecdote, with the learning worn lightly and with an eye to reaching the widest possible readership."
— Australian Slavonic and East European Studies Journal

"Informed by extensive scholarly research, keen esthetic analysis and, most importantly, bold intuition, Robin Milner-Gulland has produced a magical account of the life and work of Andrey Rublev, whose icons and frescoes illuminated the dark ages of medieval Russia. Supported by colour reproductions of relevant icons, embroideries and ecclesiastical structures, the story, narrated in a sincere, engaging and unpretentious style, provides a broad and vivid context for understanding and evaluating the art of Rublev anew, from his masterpiece the Old Testament Trinity, to his manuscript illustrations and his frescoes for the Trinity Monastery."
— John E. Bowlt, University of Southern California

"Milner-Gulland is just the author to introduce us to Rublev and his world – both little known and much misrepresented . . . Comparing and contrasting his work with that of contemporaries and colleagues, gliding lightly over differences of scholarly opinion without getting bogged down in the detail, [Milner-Gulland] evokes the man and the artist as a living presence."
— Avril Pyman, University of Durham