Description
Little is known of the life of St. Andrei, one of the geniuses in the world of art, and the patron saint of iconographers. He was a student of Byzantine master Theophanes the Greek. It is believed that Andrei’s family was from the Moscow princedom and that his family may have been artisans, as the name comes from the word ‘rubel’ which is a tool for processing leather. Legend describes him as a shy, calm person whose focus was divine service, meditation and icon painting. He is said to have had visions. His only extant murals survive at the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir and show evidence of his progression from the Byzantine style to what became the Golden Age in Russian icon painting. The heightened color scale and gracious curved linear elements defined the difference between the new and old.
