Pre-Mongol architecture of Rus
Cross-in-square churches of thin brick or white stone: Byzantine plan, Rus silhouette
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How to recognise it
- Cross-in-square plan with a dome on a drum
- Thin-brick or white limestone masonry
- Walls divided into bays by pilaster strips
- Blind arcade band and white-stone carving
- Frescoes and mosaics in Byzantine canon
Why it emerged
After the conversion of 988, princes brought in Greek masters and built cathedrals as a sign of alliance with Byzantium; later Novgorod, Vladimir and other capitals competed and developed schools of their own.
Examples
Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyivc. 1037Yaroslav the Wise's main church: 13 domes and the oldest mosaics in Rus, incl. the Orans.JPG?width=640 "AleAlexander · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons")
Saint Sophia Cathedral, Novgorod1045–1050The oldest surviving church in Russia; its austere walls set the tone of the Novgorod school
Dormition Cathedral, Vladimir1158–1160Andrey Bogolyubsky's white-stone cathedral — the model for the Moscow Kremlin's Dormition Cathedral
Church of the Intercession on the Nerl1165A single-domed white-stone church on a floodplain — the ideal of Rus architectural proportion
Cathedral of Saint Demetrius, Vladimir1194–1197Walls covered with hundreds of carved reliefs: King David, beasts, griffins and saintsHow it spread
- 989 Kyiv
- 1036 Chernihiv
- 1044 Polotsk
- 1045 Novgorod
- 1158 Vladimir
- 1230 Yuryev-Polsky
Meanwhile elsewhere
- Byzantine art Europe
- Early Islamic art (Umayyad and Abbasid) Middle East
- Moorish style (al-Andalus) Europe
- Khmer art of Angkor Asia
- Yamato-e, Heian Japanese painting Asia
- Song landscape painting Asia
- Romanesque Europe
- Ife and Benin bronzes Africa
- Gothic Europe