Poludneva Evgeniya

On the analysis of depictions of secular byzantine costume on miniatures of Codex Gertrudianus

Abstract

This article deals with the analysis of the representations of secular Byzantine costume in the miniatures of the illuminated manuscript of the second half of the 11th century Codex Gertrudianus. Codex miniatures are an important part of art legacy of medieval Rus’; however, the questions of dating, authorship and iconographic programme of the miniatures still remain controversial. This paper looks at some issues of the iconographic programme and authorship of the miniatures being based on the method of analysis of secular attire. The novelty of the research is conditioned by the lack of studies dealing with secular attire depicted in the miniatures. In particular, the analysis of the Byzantine secular attire allows us to argue in favour of the version according to which Gertrude’s patron St. Helene is depicted in the miniature “Gertrude is praying to Apostle Peter”. The paper off ers proofs that the artist was perfectly familiar with the Byzantine iconographic canon of depicting Byzantine imperial costume. At the same time, the paper points to the archaic, non-typical and misinterpreted elements of the Byzantine attire of the second half of the 11th century which show that the artist was probably not familiar with some peculiarities of the Byzantine imperial costume. The author of the paper proposes that the artist who painted the miniatures was not a Romaios but studied from Byzantine masters.

Keywords

Codex Gertrudianus, Gertrude’s Prayer Book, Old Russian book miniature, Byzantine costume, historical costume, costume of 11th century, pictorial sources

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Information about the author

Poludneva Evgeniya

Student status: Graduate student;
Place of study: Far Eastern Federal University; 8 Sukhanova Str., Vladivostok 690090, Russian Federation;
ORCID: 0000-0002-0523-8937;
Email: e.poludneva@mail.ru.