Saint with a Book

The wooden polychrome sculpture of the saint follows the traditions of European sacred plastic art. The frontal figure represents a full-length young man in a contrapposto pose. With his left hand, the saint holds a book – a traditional attribute of Christian spirituality, wisdom, and the Holy Scripture. Iconographically, the sculptural representation is close to the image of John the Evangelist – one of the 12 apostles and the beloved disciple of the Saviour. It was he who, in early Christian art, was depicted as a young, beardless man with curly hair, emphasising his status as the youngest among the apostles.
A certain static nature of the compositional solution is combined with the play of folds on the garments, which is characteristic of the Baroque plastic style. The figure is dressed in a long chiton, over which a himation, tied at the waist, wraps around the shoulders and hips and flows down to the ground. The drapery forms a complex rhythm of vertical and diagonal lines, accentuating the volume of the body and lending a picturesque quality to the silhouette. The deeply carved folds with rounded ribbed projections create deep shadow recesses, giving the attire a particular monumentality and decorative expressiveness. A special resonance is imparted by the colour contrast between the golden-brown chiton and the dark, heavy folds of the cloak.
The saint's face is treated in a generalised manner, with an emphasis on large eyes, expressive eyebrows, and small, sharply defined lips. A blush on the rounded cheeks lends a natural feel to the image. The softly defined, elongated face is framed by dark locks of wavy hair that cascade gently onto the shoulders.
The polychrome coating of red, brown, gold, and blue-green shades creates a multi-coloured surface texture. Visible abrasions and losses on the sculpture allow one to trace the history of the work's existence. The artistic language of the piece combines the conventionality of the medieval sacred tradition with the Baroque attention to volume, gesture, and decorativeness. The book, pressed to the chest, becomes the compositional and semantic centre of the image, while the rendering of the saint's garments reinforces the silhouette and heightens the sense of monumentality.

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery