Milner-Gulland has produced a tight, contextualized account of the life, insofar as it is known, and the works, insofar as they can be identified, of Russia's greatest icon painter (ikonnik), Andrey Rublev (d. 1430). Intended as the first English-language volume on Rublev and his work, the book is a slender publication, beautifully crafted with fifty-eight clear images, all but a few in color, seeded throughout the text from the gold icon cover (oklad) designed for Rublev's Old Testament Trinity to other compositions attributed to Rublev, his mentor Feofan Grek, his co-painter Daniil, and more. The organization of the images is convenient, but unfortunately, the captions do not always indicate where an image or a manuscript is located. For example, the interested scholar is given no hint for the repository location of the Khitrovo Gospel book or where one might find the embroidery copy of Glushitsky's “icon-portrait” of St. Kirill.
Milner-Gulland is versed in the art and architecture of early modern Russia, and this volume provides both context and analysis of images attributed to Rublev and others. These are the strengths of the book. The author does not detail the symbolism of icons in general in this work, but rather explains the meaning and color schemes of specific works. He waits until the end of the book to provide a “Note on Icons” that explains their theological meaning and importance in the life of Eastern Orthodox Christian worship, which may seem odd, but for this reader it was gratifying to see Rublev understood as a monk and a painter beyond the scope of the few icons that are attributed to him; the introduction to Rublev as more than the author of four or five known icons is a strength of this volume.
Milner-Gulland presented Rublev as a monk who lived and worked in multiple communities and whose craft, while in the spirit of Orthodox forms, nonetheless was recognizable in its artistry and included all the types of compositions that enhanced the Orthodox experience, from medallions on window splays (illus. 23) to, according to Milner-Gulland, illustrations for tomes such as the Khitrovo Gospel book (illus. 31). The author also gives Rublev credit for introducing the high iconostasis, noting that he knows of no other earlier evidence for this particularly Russian structure before the creation of the iconostasis in the cathedral of the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery. The book sets Rublev's life and work in a period Milner-Gulland refers to as the “Sergiev era” at the start of the renaissance of Russian monasticism, providing a brief description of the expansion of monastic communities in northern Russia and monastic life. He provides a passage on the processes of icon painting, not necessarily accomplished by monks, from the preparation of the wooden canvas to the egg-based pigments.
The book includes a chronology, limited endnotes, a select bibliography, and an index. Although scholarly in its creation and interpretations, the work is not definitive. It is most suited as an introduction to Rublev's life and accomplishments, which are detailed, and his historical and cultural context, which is somewhat traditional and greatly abbreviated, but with enough specific information to provide a foundation for Rublev's milieu. The endnotes and select bibliography together contain a mix of older publications on Russian art history from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, some more recent scholarly works, exhibit catalogs, and two publications intended for the undergraduate English-language classroom.
Milner-Gulland starts his discussion acknowledging the slim textual sources for the life of Rublev. He then provides a knowledgeable and helpful understanding of the Byzantine influences on Rublev and Russian iconographers around him. (Classical influences that inhabit the works via Byzantium are briefly mentioned at the end of the volume.) The author explains the development of the iconography of Rublev's Old Testament Trinity and its relation to the Genesis tale of Abraham and Sarah's three angelic visitors. He includes an example attributed to Feofan (illus. 53) and makes the point that Rublev's scene is unique in omitting Abraham and Sarah. The central chapters examine works attributed to Rublev by others and works Milner-Gulland believes should be included in Rublev's oeuvres, such as figures on the walls of the Dormition Church in Vladimir (illus. 40–43, 45), and the design of the cathedral of the Andronikov Monastery, still standing in Moscow (illus. 22). Some of his attributions are based more on possibilities than empirical evidence, but the possibilities that Milner-Gulland presents are historically believable, such as his hypothesis that Rublev and Andronikov's superior, Alexander, may have worked together to design a cathedral that resembled churches where Rublev had worked such as at the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery (illus. 53) and the Cathedral of the Dormition in Zvenigorod (illus. 55 and 56).
The author leaves the reader with an “Afterwords” and “Summing Up.” He discusses the importance of Rublev and Old Russian icons to modern scholars (starting in the mid-nineteenth century), and the icons’ links to the aesthetic sensibility of Russia's artists of the early twentieth century, especially the Suprematists. Milner-Gulland emphasizes the importance of Rublev's work to Soviet figures such as P. Florovsky, and film director Andrei Tarkovsky, who steeped his film, Andrei Rublev, in knowledge of Rublev's period, without being bound to historical accuracy. Even Stalin coopted Rublev and his work after he loosened the chains on the Russian Orthodox Church during World War II and initiated the Rublev Museum in the compound of the Andronikov Monastery, where Rublev had worked and died.
The book's brevity inhibits thorough discussions of points of contention in historiography or art history, although they are mentioned, but brings Rublev and his works to life. Toward the end, Milner-Gulland describes his own reaction to Rublev's creations as giving a “sense of big-heartedness, openness to all experience, gravity, and a classically based decorum mixed with a certain playfulness.”
