Theophanes (Feofan) the Greek

THEOPHANES (FEOFAN) THE GREEK. - Fresco painter of churches and painter of icons, he flourished in Novgorod and Moscow in northern and central Russia in the second half of the fourteenth century and in the first two decades of the fifteenth century.

Other details of his life are lacking. Before coming to Russia he had already worked in Constantinople, in Chalcedon, in Galata and in Caffa in the Crimea. In the city of Novgorod he first frescoed the church of the Transfiguration of Our Lord (1378); in Moscow, together with Andrei Rublev, the church of the Annunciation (1408). From him also comes the celebrated icon known as "The Madonna of the Don". He also made drawings and views of cities such as Moscow and Constantinople, something until then new in Russia. His pictorial style is bold in its strokes, nervous in its brushwork; it is distinguished both from the manner of the so-called second Palaeologan style and from the highly hieratic manner common to the Russian painters of his time. He is rightly esteemed as one of the most valiant exponents of Russian painting during the early centuries.

Alberto M. Ammann