The role of holy wives' representations in the Medieval Rus' icons (XV–XVI centuries) with the main figure of St. Nicholas of Myra and the chosen saints

In the ancient Russian art of the XV–XVI centuries, there are often works with the image of St. St. Nicholas of Myra, represented in various iconographic types and accompanied by images of holy wives. These monuments have a similar compositional structure. Among them, the most significant are those icons where the image of the Myrlician saint is placed in the centerpiece, and the figures of selected saints are represented in the margins. The subject of the study in this work is the corpus of monuments with the central image of St. Nicholas as well as the figures of the chosen saints in the fields and the images of female holiness in the margins. The purpose of this article is to determine the role of the figures of the holy women in these icon compositions by the example of monuments of a certain iconographic origin and to offer an interpretation of this previously insufficiently studied plot. To do this, we will resort to the iconographic method of research, which allows us to identify certain nuances of compositional construction, to reveal the spiritual content of the image. The method of comparative analysis is no less important in this work. The works of interest to us are united by the composition of the figures of the few holy women in the lower field, which are associated with evangelical events and the theme of steadfastness in faith (st. Paraskeva, st. Varvara or st. Ulyana), or have pronounced motives for appearing at the Last Judgment (St. Catherine). The stable tradition of depicting these holy women in the iconographic composition of these monuments suggests their correlation with the central image. We believe that they were designed to emphasize the idea of the intercession of the female saints and were organically into iconographic system.

St. Nicholas of Myra, female saints, chosen saints, St. Paraskevi, St. Catherine, St. Nicetas, St. George, saints’ intercession, Deesis, icon