Ivan the Terrible

Ivan IV was born at a time when Russian iconography had flourished for hundreds of years. Artists like Andrei Rublev (sometimes spelled Andrey Rublyov) and Theophanes the Greek had helped to increase the stature of Moscow, the city in which they lived and worked and in which the future Tsar was born.

Some of the icons, frescoes and paintings created between the 13th and 16th century are still studied today. Among them:

• Icon of St. Nicholas: Unknown Russian Master; 13th-14th Century (Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg)
  
  
• The Trinity (fresco): Theophanes; 1378 (Church of Our Savior; Novgorod)
  
  
• Madonna of Don: Theophanes; 1390s (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, named for its founder Pavel Tretyakov)
  
  
• St. Basil the Great: Theophanes; 1405 (From the Iconostasis in the Annunciation Cathedral, Moscow Kremlin)
  
  
• The Virgin: Theophanes; 1405 (From the Iconostasis in the Annunciation Cathedral, Moscow Kremlin)
  
  
• The Transfiguration: Theophanes; Early 15th Century (Tretyakov - originally in the Cathedral of Transfiguration in Pereslavl)
  
  
• The Old Testament Trinity: Andrei Rublev; 1410s (Tretyakov)
  
  
• The Old Testament Trinity (detail): Andrei Rublev; 1410s (Tretyakov)
  
  
• The Virgin of Vladimir (detail): Rublev; After 1410
  
  
• Our Savior: Rublev; 1420s (Tretyakov)
  
  
• Apostle Paul: Rublev; 1420s (Tretyakov)
  
  
• Archangel Michael: Rublev; 1420s (Tretyakov)

Now that we have taken a brief respite from Ivan Grozny’s more dastardly deeds, it is time to examine those years scholars describe as the “Bad Reign.”