Draft:The Spiritual Labyrinth

Icon from the New Jerusalem Museum

The greater part of the icon is occupied by a circular labyrinth.^[1] Art historian from the University of Warwick Sergei Zotov considers this icon an expanded version of the iconographic type of the "Spiritual Labyrinth".^[2]

The ages of human life in the form of male and female figures are depicted at the center of the icon and the labyrinth, on the steps of a stone pyramid. From infant to decrepit old man, they are arranged on this distinctive staircase. Above each figure the age is written (from 1 to 90 years).^[3][4] There is an hourglass above the figures hovering on wings. They measure out the time of human life. The image is accompanied by the inscription: "This time of God with the hours of day and night as if on wings". At the bottom are depicted scenes of birth and death (they represent in symbolic form the beginning of human life and its end),^[1] and between them stands Death in the form of a skeleton with a crown on its head and a scythe in its hands.^[2] According to Sergei Zotov, the viewer perceives themselves in the position of a deceased soul and it is from the center that they begin their mental journey through the labyrinth depicted around them.^[2]

In its movement upward toward the New Jerusalem, the soul can read the inscriptions present on the icon: "As if dwelling on the path in the present life, be with Christ in eternal beauty" and "Brother, do not believe the words of your enemy, until the swift course of this life has passed".^[5] At the top there are two exits from the labyrinth. The wayfarer is greeted by the inscription: "Since Christ lovingly calls and diligently opens the gates of paradise". In the upper part of the icon is a depiction of the New Jerusalem itself with twelve gates, as well as pure souls, who are accompanied to the New City by two angels. Above the New Jerusalem, in clouds that serve as a cartouche,^[1] is a depiction of the Deesis.^[6][1] The Theotokos and John the Baptist appeal to the Lord with a plea for the salvation of the human race. Above the New Jerusalem, beneath the Deesis, the Holy Spirit hovers in the form of a dove.^[4]

If the viewers fail navigating the labyrinth, they find themselves in the lower part of the icon. The inscription here reads: "For my soul is filled with evil and my life draws near to the dark underworld." Twelve roads lead to hell (art historian Natalya Merzlyutina counted only eleven^[7]) with the corresponding sins inscribed upon them, namely — fornication, despondency, avarice, drunkenness, vanity, pride, murder, anger, mercilessness, envy, slander, and gluttony. Before the entrance to the underworld on the left are depictions of demons armed with the newest types of weapons at that time (cannons and rifles, as well as bows), which, in Sergei Zotov's view, symbolize the passions.^[6] According to Anastasia Dolgova, this is also a depiction of demons striking "the human race with sinful passions" (Galina Zelenskaya holds the same view).^[3] The mouth of the fiery Gehenna is shifted to the right on this icon.^[1] Among the demons, one can also make out angels drawing repentant souls from the underworld.^[3]

• 
  New Jerusalem
• 
  Central part. On the lower left step the age of children is ζ (7) years, on the upper step — μ (40) years, on the lower right — ϟ (90) years
• 
  Lower left part. Demons with weapons
• 
  Lower right part. Fiery Gehenna

Icon from the State Museum of the History of Religion

The composition of the icon employs the techniques of reverse perspective. The action unfolds in a single plane. The depicted content is treated in a conventional and flat manner; only the person in the labyrinth in the middle register and Christ on the throne in the upper register are rendered with greater volume. Anastasia Dolgova notes the icon painter's use of techniques from book illustration and engraving. In her opinion, the depiction of the labyrinth is especially close to engraving. The text on the "Spiritual Labyrinth" icon demands concentration and attentive reading, which is also characteristic of engraving and is poorly suited to an icon, in which inscribed texts "traditionally play a subsidiary, auxiliary role or carry sacred meaning, merely supplementing the image and being reproduced in abbreviated form with titlos".^[8]

Dolgova analyzed the semantic and compositional structure of the icon. The icon is divided, on one hand, along the vertical central axis into two parts opposite in meaning (the death of a young sinner on one side of the axis and an elderly righteous person on the other). On the other hand, an analogous division occurs horizontally (the fiery Gehenna below and the New Jerusalem above). The composition "is supplemented by text and emotionally reinforced by the color scheme".^[9]

Depictions on the subject of the apocryphal "Vision of the Apostle Paul" in the middle register at the edges of the icon

Death of the righteous man

Death of the sinner

The "Spiritual Labyrinth" icon has three parts. The upper part depicts the New Jerusalem, the central part — the earthly world, the lower part — the underworld with the fiery Gehenna. At the center of the composition is the labyrinth, in the middle of which, against a relatively realistically rendered landscape background, is placed a person who, according to Anastasia Dolgova, is kneeling.^[10] His red garments stand out against the dark green background of the scene.^[8] Above this figure, depicted at the center of the labyrinth, is the inscription: "how I wish to walk the path". The labyrinth is circular on an ochre-yellow background and has only one exit at the top. To the underworld, on the other hand, several paths lead, each corresponding to twelve sins: envy, slander, murder, fornication, drunkenness, pride, vainglory, despondency, wrath, avarice, gluttony, and overeating. Dolgova notes that to the seven deadly sins (pride, envy, gluttony, lust, wrath, greed, and despondency) the icon painter, guiding a Christian onto the true path, adds additional ones. This allows one to penetrate into the spiritual world of a person of that era.^[10]

Around the edges of the labyrinth is a text which Dolgova was only partially able to decipher. From three sides runs the inscription: "Brethren, do not believe the words of your enemy, until the sorrowful <illegible> course of this life has arrived. As if <illegible> dwelling in life, be with Christ forever <illegible>. Show me Thy ways, O Lord, and teach me Thy paths. Draw me not away with sinners and with those who work iniquity destroy me not". The line along the lower edge of the labyrinth is entirely indecipherable. The researcher was only able to identify the source for two lines: 1) "Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths" (Ps 25:4);^[11] "Do not drag me away with the wicked, with those who do evil, who speak cordially with their neighbors but harbor malice in their hearts" (Ps 28:3).^[12][10] The catalogue of the London exhibition of 1992 erroneously stated that the text was taken from Psalm 88,^[13][14] and the catalogue of an exhibition in Finland in 1995 stated it was from Psalm 38.^[15][14]

On both sides of the labyrinth are two death scenes — that of a righteous man and that of a sinner. The righteous man — a venerable man on the left with a full beard in dark green garments under a red blanket. His soul, depicted as the figure of an infant, is received by an angel also in red garments.^[10] The sinner's soul (it also takes the form of an infant, while the sinner himself has the appearance of a beardless man) is received by a feathered monster with clawed paws, in which it holds two scrolls (Anastasia Dolgova acknowledged that she was unable to decipher the text written in them).^[8]

A small arch in the style of Renaissance architecture opens the entrance to the New Jerusalem. Jesus Christ, in a red chiton and dark green himation, sits on a throne in the Baroque style. Christ's vestments stand out clearly against the "reddish-ochre, warm and light-filled" overall color scheme of the upper register of the icon. From Christ radiate beams of light. The soul of the righteous man in white garments kneels beside an angel in red vestments. Dolgova assessed the buildings of the New City depicted by the icon painter as "buildings of different types, executed in the spirit of Western Renaissance architecture". Here and there between them are dark green trees, which also stand out by their color against the relatively even overall background.^[8]

The lower register of the icon is also executed in a reddish-ochre palette, "but this is no longer the color of warmth and light which fills the New Jerusalem, but the color of fire condemning sinners to eternal torment". The fiery Gehenna is represented on the icon as a monster with red eyes and an enormous mouth. In its mouth blaze yellow tongues of flame, signifying the underworld.^[8]

• 
  Center of the upper part. The soul of the righteous man before Christ
• 
  Upper right part. Fragment of the New Jerusalem
• 
  Lower part. Fiery Gehenna

"Spiritual Labyrinth" as a subject of the "symbolicо-dogmatic" trend in icon painting

Anastasia Dolgova attributed the iconography of the "Spiritual Labyrinth" to the "symbolico-dogmatic" trend (Natalya Merzlyutina held the same view).^[7] From her perspective, from the mid-16th century onward (further on the same page Dolgova places the emergence of didactic iconography at a later period — the late 17th and early 18th centuries) the icon begins to illustrate "the texts of prayers, hymnody, and services, striving to depict and explain complex theological concepts in an accessible manner". Such an icon often constitutes an illustration of a theological dogma, yet at the same time it is not perceived by believers as a mediator in communication with God. Icons belonging to the "symbolico-dogmatic" trend introduce into iconography a new circle of subjects, often based on the interpretation of theological and "other kinds of literature," and are simultaneously didactic and illustrative in character. A stable iconography of such subjects gradually takes shape. The artistic language of symbolico-dogmatic icons is distinctive in comparison with traditional icon painting: they are characterized, for example, by the presence of a large number of explanatory texts.^[22]

Dolgova noted the poor study of such iconographic monuments. Their iconography, origin, and place in the church had not by 2011 become the subject of detailed study. The researcher connected this with the absence of unified terminology that could be applied by specialists in analyzing this body of monuments. Dolgova asserts that the study of symbolico-dogmatic icons is at an initial stage: "the body of monuments is being defined, their iconographic study is being conducted, and their characteristics are being assessed".^[22]

Searches for the literary source

Anastasia Dolgova notes the indisputable influence of Holy Scripture on the development of the "Spiritual Labyrinth" iconography and called it the primary source.^[23] Alongside it, she pointed to the text of the apocryphal "Vision of the Apostle Paul" — "one of the most ancient recensions (in a Christian context) of the legend of a journey into the afterlife, into paradise and into hell". She considers that it was from this text that the icon painter drew the subjects for depicting in the middle register of the icon the deaths of the sinner and the righteous man:^[1][24]

…then he saw a man at the point of death. This was a righteous man, a poor man, who in dying found rest. Before him appeared all the deeds he had performed in God's name, and "his entire life". His soul was received gently by a benevolent angel… When a sinner, who has spent his entire life in eating and drinking, feels death approaching and all his spiritual deeds surround him, he begins to lament bitterly and cries out that it would have been better for him never to have been born in this world. Stern angels forcibly tear his soul from his body… The guardian angel, in turn, reproaches the soul.

Dolgova notes that the scene of the death of the righteous man is depicted close to the text of the "Vision of the Apostle Paul," while the death of the sinner is rendered "somewhat differently," as "the opposite of the death of the righteous man, almost mirroring its general composition".^[1]

As Sergei Zotov notes, the image of the labyrinth denoting the danger-filled path of a person to God began to appear in Russian spiritual literature from the 15th century, and this subject ultimately made its way "onto church images" as well (among which Zotov included the "Spiritual Labyrinth" iconography).^[25] Zotov considers that the basis for the "Spiritual Labyrinth" iconography could have been the book by the Czech philosopher, pedagogue, and theologian John Amos Comenius Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart. It was translated into Russian in the first half of the 17th century. In the book, a traveler wanders "through the labyrinth of the world, surveying the arrangement of estates, sciences, and religion". The outcome of his wanderings is a coming to Christ and spiritual enlightenment. The carefree death of the righteous man is mentioned and his ascent to paradise is described.^[6]

Tracing the Western European source of Russian iconography, Zotov names allegorical poetic works and their illustrations that appeared in the 15th century. Among such literary monuments figures the German spiritual poem The True Guide of the King. Zotov allows that the illustration to this book or another similar one could have inspired the Russian icon painter as well. The researcher also drew attention to the use of the labyrinth image by Western mysticism of late antiquity. For example, the Christian poet Prudentius, who lived in the 4th century, writes of the labyrinth as a symbol of the recklessness of pagans and heretics and creates metaphors of wandering through the world and seeking the true path. The allegory of the labyrinth in this sense, in Zotov's view, survived until the 10th century, when the French Benedictine monk and later saint Abbo of Fleury complained that heretics were confusing young people by casting them "into the labyrinth of error." This same line was continued by Dante, who described hell "as a tangled labyrinth consisting of many circles, ledges, and crevices, in contrast to the clear concentric rings of paradise".^[26]

Searches for the origins in Western European and Russian engravings, as well as in Catholic frescoes

Anastasia Dolgova considers that images similar in meaning to the "Spiritual Labyrinth" iconography can be found in Western European engraving of the 17th century, which, as she reminded her readers, in the 17th and 18th centuries exerted great influence on Russian icon painting. Dolgova specifically noted the influence of "Western European pattern books and medieval engravings with an emblematic way of thinking".^[27]

In European engraving there exist examples of the labyrinth as a symbol of spiritual seeking — one such example is an engraving which Dolgova calls "The Soul of a Pilgrim, Led by the Word of God, in the Labyrinth of Spiritual Searching", attributes to the master Herman Hugo, and dates to 1622. The researcher notes, however, that the labyrinth in it is depicted "from a different viewpoint and in a different vein". In the engraving, a person is depicted from behind, standing at the center of a circular labyrinth. Inside the labyrinth, several other people are also depicted, one of whom "has stumbled and is reaching his hand upward, asking for help." According to Dolgova, "the didactic meaning of the engraving is analogous to the meaning of the icons." From her point of view, "the differences can be easily explained by the difference between the artistic languages of icon painting and engraving".^[27] In fact, Herman Hugo is the author of the text of the book Pia desideria, for which as an illustration was used an engraving by the artist Boetius Adams Bolswert entitled "Child dressed as a pilgrim in a labyrinth", Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 95 by 56 millimetres (3.7 in × 2.2 in)). The book was published in 1624 in Antwerp.^[28]

Dolgova identified several more engravings that could be related to the "Spiritual Labyrinth" iconography:^[29]

• In the third volume of the multi-volume work by Dmitry Rovinsky Russian Popular Prints there is a description of an engraving entitled "Spiritual Labyrinth", which at the time was in the collection of the Olsufyevs. The researcher cited the description by the pre-revolutionary art historian: "The labyrinth is arranged in a large… octagon; the paths run in circles, concentrically, in straight bands in 22 rows: in the center is the New Jerusalem (paradise), in it the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove… In the four corners are depicted, at the top: 1) the arrival of the Wise Thief in paradise, 2) Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in paradise, and at the bottom: 3) the death of a sinner and 4) sinners in hellfire. Along the paths the following inscriptions appear: in the upper half of the labyrinth 'The narrow way leading into eternal life. Disperse your wealth and endow the homes of the poor and the orphans. Renounce sweet foods, take up dry eating. Cease from drunkenness and love sobriety.' At the bottom the text reads: 'the broad and wide way, leading to eternal destruction…Hate sloth, take up obedience, if anyone strikes you on the cheek, turn it to the other also…' Text on the left: 'Love virginity, hate fornication. Renounce impurity, take up chastity, cease from evil, repent.' On the right side: 'Cease from malice, love your enemies in friendship, renounce cunning, accept adversity and tribulation. Renounce worldly vanities, approach salvation'".^[29][30]

In this description (she had not seen the engraving itself), Dolgova found "an instructive meaning, expressed in an interpretation close to the icons under consideration," and concluded that one can speak "of a certain similarity of iconography" as well, since the popular engraving displays scenes of a sinner's death, a depiction of the labyrinth, hell, and the New Jerusalem. All of these are also part of the "Spiritual Labyrinth" iconography.^[29]

• An engraving from the Iconologia of the Italian writer and iconographer Cesare Ripa contains an allegorical depiction of the world in the form of a labyrinth. At the end of the labyrinth is a skeleton, which Dolgova interprets as a symbol of death. In her view, such a depiction makes it possible to consider the labyrinth in this engraving in comparison with the "Spiritual Labyrinth" iconography. In both cases, the labyrinth is "a symbol of the world, of life, of life's journey".^[29]

Anastasia Dolgova specifically notes that, since the architecture in the "Spiritual Labyrinth" icon from the Museum of the History of Religion contains features of Western European building, this can be perceived as indirect confirmation of the connection between the "Spiritual Labyrinth" iconography and engravings of Western origin. Summing up her article, Anastasia Dolgova writes that the "Spiritual Labyrinth" iconography was the result of the combined influence of literary sources and Western European engravings. Individual details of the iconography were directly borrowed from engravings and spiritual literature.^[29]

Sergei Zotov considers a possible source of the iconography to be allegorical depictions in church frescoes of Western Europe, in which the hand of the Virgin Mary or Jesus Christ himself guides wayfarers wandering in the labyrinth of their passions, providing the wanderers with a guiding thread akin to the thread of Ariadne from the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.^[26] Zotov notes that the labyrinth in European medieval times also served as a symbol of spiritual seeking. He bases this assertion on the labyrinths on the floors of Gothic cathedrals. In Chartres Cathedral, even at the beginning of the 21st century, believers perform a special mystical pilgrimage on their knees from the beginning to the center along such a labyrinth on Fridays (the day of Christ's death). In Feodorovskaya Icon Cathedral in Saint Petersburg there is a reduced copy of the Chartres labyrinth. The clergy of the cathedral offer the following explanation: "…moving along the white line, one must reach the center… you fairly quickly find yourself in close proximity to the center, but do not reach it. Moving further, you go further and further from the center, until you find yourself at the farthest radius. And here, in a situation of maximum distance, it suddenly turns out that it only takes a few more turns and you are at the center. The meaning is simple — beginning the search for God, a person quite quickly falls into the illusion that the goal has already been reached. Yet ahead lies a long, winding path. And when, it seems, all hope has been lost and God is very far away, it turns out that He is near".^[6]

A researcher Galina Zelenskaya notes the presence of labyrinths on the floors of the Gothic cathedrals of Chartres, Amiens, and Reims, and Russian people's familiarity with the book of Jan Amos Comenius; however, she writes that iconographic images with this subject spread in Russia only from the 18th century onward and are based on texts of Holy Scripture and the works of the Church Fathers.^[3]

The iconography emergence as a result of the resettlement to Russia of religious sectarians from Europe

Doctor of Art History Igor Orlov allows that the symbolism of the labyrinth penetrated into Russia through the mediation of European masters invited by Peter I and his successors in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Prior to this time, the labyrinth is not found in Russian iconography. Orlov linked its appearance with the resettlement to Russia of members of the religious community known as the Bohemian Brethren. After expulsion from Bohemia in the late 17th century (as stated by Orlov), they settled in Saxony at the estate of Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf Herrnhut, and from that time became known as Herrnhuters. In 1729, the Herrnhuters appeared in Livonia on the territory of the Russian Empire, and in 1764, having received the right of freedom of religion and of free residence, they resettled in the southern provinces of Russia (including in the Tsaritsyn district of Saratov Governorate). The decisive role in the spread of labyrinth symbolism in Russia could have been played, in Orlov's view, by the book Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart (1623), with a Russian verse preface written in the 1630s. The art historian emphasizes that its author, Jan Amos Comenius, was the last bishop of this sect.^[31] Russian icon painters, having borrowed the image of the labyrinth from the Herrnhuters, subsequently sought to find a correspondence for it in the texts of Holy Scripture and the works of the Holy Fathers.^[4]