Exhibition "The History of Uglich in Faces"

About exhibition

The museum's painting department has two exhibition halls. The large hall presents the exhibition "Posad residents — commoners — townspeople", a collection of portraits from the 18th–19th centuries. A century — from the middle of one century to the middle of the next — was a time of portraiture for the provinces. The quiet life of the towns, the consolidation of the merchant class, and the appearance of regular plans and model house designs all seemed to lead to the widespread popularity of portrait painting. Merchants no longer hid their way of life; on the contrary, they admired their new houses and decorated them with furniture, mirrors, and their own likenesses. The canvases of local artists do not belong to "folk art", yet they are far removed from the standards of metropolitan painting. This is a distinct artistic phenomenon—recognizable and vivid. Among these works are pieces by Ivan Tarkhanov, a well-known "classic" of the urban portrait. At the back of the hall is the exhibition "Like stars on the firmament of the church...": works of Old Russian and ecclesiastical art from the 15th–20th centuries. Of particular note are the icons of the "Leontiev Deesis" from the early 1480s, created for the iconostasis of the Intercession Cathedral of the Pokrov Monastery at the time when the great Dionisy worked in Uglich. The exhibition is further enriched by images of saints who shone on the Uglich land. The faces of Saint Prince Roman, the holy tsarevich Dmitry, and the venerable Paisius of Uglich, Kassian of Uchem, and Ignatius of Priluki—captured on icons, parsuny, banners, and embroidered shrouds—reveal another facet of the town of Uglich, one of the country's oldest spiritual centers.