19th century Russian icon.
"Saint Mark.
Painting on wood.
It has some lack of polychromy.
Measurements: 30,5 x 27 x 3 cm.
The angel that usually accompanies the canonical representations of Saint Mark refers to a dream that the evangelist had: being in the Rialtine islands, as a result of a shipwreck, he dreamt of an angel who promised him that he would sleep in that land waiting for the last day. On the other hand, it is also narrated that while he was in prison while spreading the words of the Lord, he was comforted by an angel. Stylistically, the icon follows the pictorial precepts of the Orthodox tradition: linear and stylised drawing, delicate palette, gilding and carmine in rich chromatic contrast.
Icons cannot be compared to other works of art in the usual sense of the word. They are not paintings, because they do not reproduce motifs from reality; they do not represent, but constitute in themselves another world. And they do so with special means of representation, developed over the centuries. In them, colour plays a significant role, that of a symbolic language that must express not the colour of things, but their luminosity, a light that comes from beyond the physical world. The golden spaces of the icons embody this unearthly light, and the golden background symbolises the space that is "not of this world". In icons there is no such thing as ordinary space, just as there are no conventional events. The icon is an open window to a world of another nature, but this window opens only for those who possess a spiritual vision.