Christ is in a dungeon

"Perm gods" hidden from the general public. Rare shots from museum reserves.

Ural masters in their own way understood the gospel. And the ban on the Orthodox Church on the sculptural image of Christ and the saints - without trembling, violated. Not heresy - out of ignorance. Naive sacred art - literally pulled out of cellars and cellars of rural churches, art forces Nikolai Serebrennikov. From its presentation a little less than a century ago, the world learned about the Perm wooden sculpture . Now foreign tourists, having arrived in Perm, first go to the art gallery - and come out of there fascinated: this is Old Wooden Sculpture of Perm!

The gods, angels and apostles cut out of the tree managed, despite the fragility of the material, to survive a lot. At different times, they kept a blow from both the atheistic Soviet power, and from the native Orthodox Church (she saw a pagan heritage in the “idols”). And this is only in the main exposition of the Perm art gallery the sculpture looks relative and unharmed. In the storerooms - objects that were less fortunate for the time being were hidden.

Almost every “reserve” behind his own, completely human drama. For example, there are two angels that were made by one master, but separated for almost eighty years and met only in the Perm Gallery. The fate of other sculptures is even sadder - the wooden saints lost limbs, fingers and nii, lost their unique author’s painting, were covered with cracks from improper storage. They are trying to save them in the gallery.

This fall, the Perm Wooden Sculpture will go to the international exhibition in Lyon. And it is quite possible that several sculptures from the fund will fall into the museum exposition for the replacement of “guesters”. In general, this is a precedent: that which is stored in storerooms is very rarely available to a wide audience. All the more valuable the ability to look here - “salt” succeeded.