Vladimir-Suzdal school

Vladimir-Suzdal school

“The Archangel Michael,” icon by an anonymous artist of the Vladimir-Suzdal school, egg …

(credit: Novosti Press Agency, Moscow)

School of Russian medieval mural and icon painting, with origins in Kievan Byzantine art, that flourished in the 12th–13th century around the cities of Vladimir and Suzdal, in northeastern Russia. Its works, while maintaining Byzantine illusionistic modeling and solid proportions that lack the elongation that characterizes all later Russian art, move toward a more Russian expression: the emotion is intensely ascetic, the anatomy of the figures is uncertain and the hands are typically small, and the facial expressions portray a range of emotions. This brilliant artistic development ended with the mid-13th-century Mongol invasions.