N.P. Melnikov
Art History, Ethnography and Folklore Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus
Address: 220072, Belorussia, Minsk, Surganova st., 1, bld. .2.
Tel.: (375 17) 284-27-32
Fax: (375 17) 284-23-81

The analysis was hold upon archive material gathered during expeditions made by the Institute of art, ethnography and folklore of the National Academy of Sciences of Belorussian in 1970 - 90 in cult institutions in Belarus. The Information about icons was put into computer and the data “Icona” was developed based on FoxPro. Icona consists of 16 fields: the name of the subject, time of its creation, the location of the subject accord to the modern geographical division, size, material, technique etc. “Icona” contains 20000 notes.

17303 icons were examined. They contain 1500 plots and illustrate events and characters in gospel and Bible history. As the number of icons inversely proportional to the time of their creation, the majority of plots is introduced as unique and can not be analysed statistically.

More than 100 plots were examined in detail. About 55% of icons are in Western part of Belarus - in Brest and Grodno regions. 14,6% of them are in the East of the country - in Gomel and Mogilev regions. The same situation is seen in the number of plots.

In spite of the fact that the number of catholic churches in Belarus is 20% of all cult institutions, 90% of all icons belong to churches. That is why our statistic calculations basically refer to orthodox and unite plots. Accordingly statistic analysis of catholic icons was made independently.

Table 1 shows the relative number of icons all over the country according to the time of their creation. The main part of icons relates to the period from the middle of the 19 century to the beginning of 20 century. 15% icons relates to 16-19 centuries. The number of icons in 16 century is 20 items and this period was not examined in the analysis. The majority of ancient icons are preserved in Brest region. Minsk, Gomel and Mogilev regions had the majority of icons in 19 century.

Table1

Table 2 shows the distribution (in percents) of the most spread plots accordingly to the time of creation in relation to the whole number of icons of the given plot. The 16^th century is introduced by the icons of Virgin. Other plots are introduced as unique. In 17^th century the number of plots increases. In the 18^th century all the plots spread on the territory of Belarus are presented in icons. Some Saints (Alexander Nevsky, Vladimir, Theodosius Archbishop of Chernigov and other) appear only in the 19^th century after joining Belarus to the Russian Empire.

Table 2

Table 3 shows distribution the most wide spread plots in six regions and all over the country. In the separate column there are some plots which are situated in the catholic churches.

At the first place are pictures of the Virgin. The most part of these icons are in Gomel and Mogilev regions. In the catholic churches they also wide spread. At the second place are pictures of the Pantocrator. In relative units this subject is that most ordinary in Mogilev region and less in Gomel and Grodno regions. In the catholic churches it is found too rarely. In fact The Passion is represented practically in each catholic church instead of the Saviour. Then icons of St. Nicholas the Miracle-Worker go. The relative number of icons of this subject are represented mostly in Mogilev and Gomel regions and less in Grodno region. In Gomel region it even exceeds the number of icons of the Saviour. Icons of St. Nicholas are rare in catholic churches.

We should mention that other plots are shown less than three basic. This table shows most spread plots that can be found in catholic churches.

Table 3

We also analysed the prevalence of plots during the period up to the middle of the 19 century. The first four positions belong to the same plots that are in the common list. The 5^th place belong to the subject the Crucifixion that has 14^th place in the list. The same situation is about the plot "St. George and the Dragon" that moved from 18^th place to the 7^th. Plots "The Annunciation", "St. Barbara", "Crowning of the Virgin", "The Pentecost" raised up in the list. And vice versa, the plot "The Assumption", that had 9^th place moved to the 17^th, but the plot "The Prayer of the Cup" is not present in the table because it appeared only in the second half of the 19^th century.

This change of relative prevalence of some plots take place due to different reasons. In some cases it may be the influence of politics (after 1863), in other - tastes of client.

Icons of the Virgin have developed iconography that has more than 100 versions. It was analysed on the example of 20 most spread. These facts were reports on "Fili-99" and published in the conference materials.

Separately it was analysed distribution of icons of belorussian subjects by us. St. Euphrosyne of Polock, The Martyrs of Wilno, St. Athanasius of Brest, The Virgin of Ostraja Brama, The Virgin of Zhrovichi, The Virgin of Belynichy belong to them. Except the icons of The Virgin the rest subjects are found since beg. 19^th century. All of them, even the most spreal - The Virgin of Ostraja Brama - contain less than 1% of the whole number of the icons. The peculiarity of all these subjects is the area of its replacement is limited by the suburbs of the place of the protograph or the place where this saint was gloried.

Picture 1 as an example shows changes of relative numbers of icons of St. Athanasius of Brest from the geographical longitude of the location of icons. So moving from 23⁰ east longitude (Brest) to the east till 28⁰ longitude the number of icons less from maximum till zero and then to the east this subject is not represented.

Pic. 1

Picture 2 shows distribution of icons with the famous Saint Euphrosyne of Polock. The most number of icons are on the longitude of Polock and diminishes till zero moving to the east and to the west. The same is those respected icons as The Virgin of Ostraja Brama and The Virgin of Chenstochov whose protographs are beside Belarus.

Pic. 2

It is pity we could not find such statistic researches on iconography by other authors. But we compared with information which in catalogue "Icons of Ural". The majority of the icons (about 600) helped us to make the same analysis. Comparative data are in Table 4.

Table 4

On the first place as in Belarus there are icons with pictures of The Virgin. On the second place is the subject with very popular Saint Simeon of Verkho-Tura. Then it goes Nicholas, whose relative numbers are the same with information around Belarus.

V.G. Karelin - Scientific Researcher, working with the Division of Ancient Belorussian Arts of National Art Museum of Belarus, Doctor of Sciences.

N.P. Melnikov - Scientific Researcher, working with the Division of Ancient Belorussian Culture of the Art History, Ethnography and Folklore Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.

The National Art Museum of Belarus contains the Republic's largest collection of works of art. It exhibits examples of painting, sculpture, the graphic and applied arts. The Museum have a unique collection of works of ancient Belorussian art (examples of icon-painting, sculpture, applied arts), numerous pictures by painters who were born in Belarus and Russia.

In the Art History, Ethnography and Folklore Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus investigations of ethnography and folklore of various regions of Republic are performed. The Museum of Ancient Belorussian Culture is established at the Institute (icons, sculpture, artefacts, ethnological items, altogether more than 15000 displays). The Institute have published the Code of (?) Memorials of Belarus and the Encyclopedia of History of Arts of Belarus.