Icon Painting Faculty Summarizes Results of First Semester
On December 25, 26, and 27, reviews of student works for the first half of the 2025/2026 academic year were held in the workshops of the Icon Painting Faculty of the Academy.
On Thursday, December 25, first and second-year students presented their works for the commission's review. First-year students completed grisailles, copies of icons and fragments done in watercolor in a single color with tonal variations, as well as their first "tablets" with depictions of hills, tents, and trees. With these, the students began their acquaintance with the new-to-them technique of tempera painting.
Second-year students are currently continuing to master the technique of painting the "personal" (lichnoe, i.e., faces and hands). They are also gaining their first experience of working in museums in Novgorod, Pskov, Suzdal, Rostov Veliky, Pskov, and in the Museum of Christian Art "Church-Archaeological Cabinet" of the Moscow Theological Academy, while simultaneously working on the iconography of ancient saints.
On Friday, December 26, the review for the third-year students took place. The students are painting icons for the festival row of the iconostasis, working jointly on a single ensemble for the first time, learning not only from their instructor and ancient masters but also from each other. Third-year students also continue copying in museums, the Novgorod Museum-Reserve, Pskov, the Hermitage and are working on the iconography of saints closer to our time, whose photographs have been preserved.
On the same day, a review of works by students of the facial embroidery (litsevoy shityo) department was held. Here, first-year students study the basics of the ancient embroidery technique: stitches "in prikrep" (v prikrep) and "in raskol" (v raskol), while older students embroider icons, veils/palls, bookmarks for the Gospel, and other liturgical embroidered items.
On Saturday, December 27, reviews for the 4th and 5th years were held. The fourth-year students presented copies made at the Tretyakov Gallery during museum practice, the progress of work on their course icons: students are painting the Deesis for the St. Michael the Archangel Church of the Yuriev Monastery. Some have begun developing a project for wall paintings in a church or an ensemble of icons for an iconostasis.
The graduating fifth-year students demonstrated the progress of work on their diploma projects: icons of ancient and new saints, one life-icon (zhitiynaya ikona), and deacon's doors. The icons are intended for the Church of St. Alexander Nevsky in Ryazan, the St. Nicholas Church in Myshkin, the Ascension Church of the Orshin Monastery near Tver, the Church of Archangel Michael in Bugulma; the life-icon of St. Patrick will go to Ireland.
Two fifth-year students, as part of their pre-diploma practice, visited the Hermitage for copying work.
The commission at the reviews provided useful comments and suggestions for the further course of work.
MThA Press Office