Dear Friends!

We continue to acquaint you with the Artistic Heritage of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, in particular with the painting of the Refectory Church.

One of the most interesting images of the medallion frieze under the dome of the Refectory Church is the image of the Forefather Adam. Ivan Izhakevych portrayed him as a profoundly old man. Adam holds in hands a sheaf of wheat, symbolizing the “daily bread” that the first man had to earn in the sweat of his brow during a long earthly life after his expulsion from paradise, by the will of the Lord. A rigid fold on his clothes on his back makes the body, tired of the burden of the years lived, even more stooped. The hands of the Forefather Adam with stiff inflexible fingers are the hands of a man exhausted by disease and the struggle for existence. His look from under the gray shaggy eyebrows is stern and gloomy, but it clearly reflects bitterness and remorse. The line of his mouth is barely outlined. Long gray mustache and beard draw down the edges of lips gloomily dropped. Adam is close to the end of his difficult path - he will return to the earth from which he was “taken as dust”.

Ivan Izhakevych makes the appearance of the Old Testament Forefather (like his other characters) emphatically individualized, bringing in a personal, subjective assessment. Due to this author's tendency, the program wall paintings of the church are supplemented and enriched with philosophical and visual qualities of the portrait genre.

The text was prepared by Olena Pitateleva, the senior research worker

Illustration

Ivan Izhakevych. Forefather Adam. Refectory Church.  Medallion frieze under the dome. 1905