Svyatoslav

The artists at “Svyatogor” focus on folk and historic themes, which resulted in the creation of entire gallery of images related to events and “legends of old times”. The figure of the Kiev an Prince Svyatoslav, whom Nikolay Karamzin hailed as “Alexander the Great of our ancient history” reflects both the stone cutters’ own ideas, and the preferences of connoisseurs and collectors who deeply appreciate their art, and take profound interest for national past. The masters have been able to transform a small but representative figure of the Prince, and the “byliny (tales) of old time”, and the epic and poetic lines by poets known as symbolists of the 20th and 19th century. The Prince is standing firmly on the ground, as if covered with grey feather-grass of jade, “the shirt is made of linen, and his sword is on his belt”, as poet Velimir Khlebnikov put it. The author of the model demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the iconography of the hero whom ancient authors wrote about that he was “of a moderate height, not too tall and not too short, with thick eyebrows and light-blue eyes, with a pointed nose, beardless, with thick, overly long hair above the upper lip.” According to the Byzantine writer Leo the Deacon, Svyatoslav’s head “was completely bald, but there was a hair strand hanging on one side, which is a sign of coming from a wealthy family. He had a gold earring in one ear; it was decorated with a carbuncle with two pearls around it. His attire was white and only different from that worn by his servants with its visible cleanliness.” This description corresponds to the image of Svyatoslav as it was devised at the beginning of the last century by the famous Russian painter Klavdy Lebedev and the mounted bronze sculpture of Svyatoslav cast at A. Moran’s factory to the model created by Eugene Lanceray. Following the documentary, pictorial, and sculptural images, the stone cutters created a recognizable but at the same time unique image of Svyatoslav in hard stones. They carved the white shirt out of chalcedony and cut the mail armour from pyrite with stone and metal parts. He has an earring of precious metal in his ear, and two gilded clasps hold the animal skin mantle of moss agate. The weapons are also portrayed with meticulous attention to each small detail. The Prince’s vestments are shown accurately in each minutest detail, but so is his image. His face cut of Gazgan marble is extremely expressive — it is “gloomy and tough” — exactly as described by his contemporaries. The Prince and Commander as interpreted by the masters at “Svyatogor” is full of dignity and confidence. His hand rests on the handle of a long sword that he is prepared to pull out of his sheath, saying the words he is famous for, “I am coming after you.”