WALL PAINTING OF THE ASSUMPTION CHURCH OF THE 17TH CENTURY IN THE VILLAGE OF NOVOSELYTSIA IN TRANSCARPATHIA: TO THE PROBLEM OF CONSERVATION

Abstract

The article examines the wall paintings of the 17th century in one of the oldest Ukrainian wooden churches – the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the village of Novoselytsia, Vynohradiv district, Transcarpathia. An iconographic analysis of the wall compositions “The Last Judgment”, “Deisus” with the Apostolic Row, “Crucifixion”, “Tree of Jesse” and others was conducted, on the basis of which the regional features of the iconographic program of the paintings in the church and the originality of the creative imagination of folk masters were established. A comparison of the scenes of the "Last Judgment" with similar scenes in the compositions of 17th-century icons in churches in the villages of Plavie (Lviv region) and Lipie (Poland) was made. For the first time, a comparison of the episode "The March of the Righteous to Paradise" with the murals in the churches of St. George in Drohobych was made and it was discovered that the perception of Kyiv as the Second Jerusalem in the composition "Upper Jerusalem" should be attributed to the new iconographic features in Novoselytsia. Information in the scenes of the "Last Judgment" has been supplemented, and the presence of realistic elements from the life of the Transcarpathian population has been identified. For the first time, the composition "Deisus" with the Apostolic Row was analyzed and compared with the "Deisus" plot in the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Drohobych and in the Church of the Holy Spirit in Potelych, regional features and common motifs in the iconographic scheme of these compositions were revealed. A review of the compositions "Crucifixion", "Passion of Christ", "Tree of Jesse" and ceiling images was made. The connection between the image of Joachim and Anna on the eastern wall on either side of the Crucifixion and a similar iconographic scheme in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra before the fire of 1718 has been established. The characteristic iconographic and stylistic features of Novoselytsia murals are formulated: a unique interpretation of the plots of iconographic programs by folk masters, folkloric poetics, graphic design with a free line-contour, simplicity and laconicism, and a close connection with the Ukrainian artistic culture of its era. The problem of preserving the mural in the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the village of Novoselytsia in Transcarpathia, which is important for recreating a true picture of the development of artistic processes in Ukrainian art of the 17th century, is raised.