Beautiful also. Thank you, Ray.

There are two 'traditional' Belarusian styles of iconography. One displays a definite western influence - the particulars of which changed over time, keeping in synch with developing schools of western art. Thus, one can find Belarusian icons which display Renaissance characteristics and others reflective of the Baroque period.

At the same time, and often on a parallel timeline, there is another 'school' of Belarusian iconography that would be best described as exhibiting a slightly 'rough' (for lack of a better term) Byzantine look. Not 'folksy', but more 'realistic' than we typically picture as Greek Byzantine and yet not as 'polished' as Slav Byzantine iconography. See, for instance these Belarusian icons under restoration, noting particularly the eyes.

Curiously, this icon fits into neither of those 'schools', seeming to have a degree of sophistication that outdoes both of them as I described them. To my unscholarly eye, it most resembles the Iveron version of the Hodegetria (other than the sceptre in Mary's hand) - see the photo gallery post that Mike L made just a few days ago.

Not sure the point of this musing. I just happened to be struck by how different it was from what I've encountered in Belarusian iconography.

Many years,

Neil

Thank you for the link, Neil. The restorations are really amazing. What an interesting profession that must be. Unfortunately the text is cut off by a strip of white along the right margin when I look at the site in both Firefox and IE.

Mary Louise,

I had the same problem at first, until I noticed that there seems to be a wide left margin (apparently set up to accomodate the left menus at the top of the page and not corrected below that point).

On FF, go to view and zoom out. Just be sure to go back to view and hit reset afterwards, so as to not affect other pages. In IE, I think you have to play with the % setting on view to see the text properly.

Many years,

Neil

Thank you, Neil!

Here's another interesting restoration project, of murals painted by an inmate in a long abandoned Catholic Chaplain's office in Eastern State Penitentiary:
http://tinyurl.com/3wazmfl
Do scroll down to the YouTube story about it.