AUTHOR’S INTERPRETATION THE CROWN OF THORNS IN TETYANA DUMAN’S ICONS

Abstract

The article analyzes the creative achievements in the field of icon painting by the artist T. Duman and focuses on her interpretation of the Christian symbol – the crown of thorns. Systemic, complex methods were used in the research, the structural-typological method was used for systematization and processing of textual and visual sources, the iconological method was used for the analysis of figurative and symbolic content images of icons. We tried to outline for the first time in the article the importance of the artist’s artistic language in the context of the development of modern iconography, which focuses on the author’s interpretation of the tradition of folk icons. There stated that creative heritage of T. Duman (1981–2020) was inextricably linked with the achievements of the ancient rybotychi’s center of icon painting, the activities of the masters of this center were the subject of her research. When artist was studying at the Lviv Academy of Arts and was participating in the creative association “Cactus”, she gave a good professional training, revealed her creative potential, encouraged to search own artistic language. The subject of the article’s research is plots where artist depicts Christ in a crown of thorns. These images have both a traditional version representation of symbol Christ’s suffering (the wreath of intertwined branches of thorns) and options for a bold creative rethinking of it. There concluded that T. Duman interpreted this symbol of passions by supplementing it with small white flowers and leaves. This can be traced in the works “Christ in a Blooming Wreath of Thorns” (2009, 2019) and the diptych “The Virgin and Christ” (2020). The impetus for treatment the crown of thorns in iconography was the interest of artist in diverse variants of tradition combining folk floral symbols in traditional Ukrainian Christian iconography.