Russian Illuminated Manuscripts by Olga Popova
4to. pp. 30 + 48 plates with commentary. 69 illustrations - 48 in colour. paperback (fine condition). [New York]: Thames & Hudson, [1984].
ISBN-10: 0500273103 / ISBN-13: 9780807608678
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Russian illuminated manuscripts represent an achievement little known in the West; for they are not placed on public display in the Soviet Union because of their fragility, nor are they easily studied, even by visiting scholars. This book collects and illustrates the finest and most representative examples, chosen by a Russian expert with full access to the greatest treasures. The selection ranges from the earliest-dated Russian illuminated manuscript to have survived--illuminated in the early eleventh century in Kiev--to a sixteenth-century Moscow manuscript that stands at the close of a period of unique greatness. During the five centuries covered by this selection, local as well as the large and important centers of manuscript illumination made their contributions to the art, until eventually, from the diversity emerges a characteristically "Russian" style of illumination--warm, radiant, meditative, reflecting a spiritual climate unique to Russia. Each of the miniatures is reproduced full-page and in color, with an introduction and commentary describing what is known of the illuminator and the circumstances of its creation