Russian icon from the 18th century.

Russian icon from the 18th century.
"Life of Jesus".
Egg tempera on panel.
Provenance: Russian Monastery of Saint Alexander - Nevsky. Jerusalem. Acquired in 1976.
Restored by Josep Gudiol.
Measurements: 53,5 x 44 x 2 cm.
This icon presents the life of Jesus in twelve vignettes placed around a central cartouche with an allegorical scene and, around it, the representation of various characters related to the figure of Christ. In the outer vignettes we see, beginning in the upper left-hand corner and clockwise, the birth of the Virgin, her presentation in the Temple, the Annunciation, the Birth of Jesus, his Baptism, the episode on the Mount of Olives, a group of three saints accompanied by a large cross, the death of the Virgin, the three angels seated at Abraham's table, the appearance of the risen Christ, his entry into Jerusalem and his presentation in the Temple. The reading order would therefore be from top to bottom and from left to right, horizontally.
It comes from a monastery of White Russian nuns (independent of the Kremlin) in Jerusalem, which was maintained by donations from exiled Russians. These White Russian nuns were mostly descendants of exiled noble families.
Icons cannot be compared to other works of art in the usual sense of the word. Icons are not paintings, but are considered to be the real presence of the person depicted. Paintings, with their features and colouring, speak of people and events in concrete reality. Icons, on the other hand, do not represent, but constitute in themselves another world. And they do so with special means of representation, developed over the centuries. In them, colour plays a significant role, that of a symbolic language that must express not the colour of things, but their luminosity, a light that comes from beyond the physical world. The golden spaces of the icons embody this unearthly light, and the golden background symbolises the space that is "not of this world". In the icons there are no shadows, because in the kingdom of God everything is full of light. There is no usual space in them either, just as there are no conventional events. The icon is an open window to a world of another nature, but this window opens only for those who have a spiritual vision. One of the advocates of the veneration of icons was John Damascene (675 - c.750), who taught that the Old Testament prohibition against making images of God had a temporary character: "In ancient times, no one made images of God. But now, after God has manifested himself in the flesh and lived among men, we make images of the visible God. I do not make the image of the invisible Divinity: I make the image of the body of God that I have seen...". The visible does not convey the essence of the inconceivable God. But just as the body has its shadow, so every original has its copy: "the icon is memory". And just as Sacred Scripture is a verbal representation, an image of sacred history, so too the icons are a representation of it, but not verbal, but made with the touches of the brush and with colours.