Armory

ARMORY

The Armory (Oruzheinaia palata ) was a Muscovite state department that organized the production of arms, icons, and other objects for the tsars and their household; later it became a museum.

An Armory chancery (prikaz ) was established in the Moscow Kremlin at the beginning of the sixteenth century to supervise the production and storage of the tsars' personal weapons and other objects, such as saddles and banners. By the middle of the seventeenth century, it encompassed a complex of studios, including the Gold and Silver Workshops and the Armory Chamber itself, which employed teams of craftsmen to produce a wide variety of artwork and artifacts and also stored and maintained items for the palace's ceremonial and liturgical use and for distribution as gifts. The chancery commanded considerable funds and a large administrative staff, presided over by such

leading boyars as Bogdan Khitrovo, who was director of the Armory from 1654 to 1680, during which time it emerged as a virtual academy of arts.

From the 1640s onward, the Armory had dedicated studios for icon painting and, beginning in 1683, for nonreligious painting. Its most influential artist was Simon Ushakov (1626–1686), whose images demonstrate a mixture of traditional compositions and more naturalistic use of light, shade, and perspective. Characteristic examples include his icons "The Planting of the Tree of the Muscovite Realm" (1668) and "Old Testament Trinity" (1671). He also made charts and engravings and painted portraits. The development of portrait painting from life by artists such as Ivan Bezmin and Bogdan Saltanov was one of the Armory's most striking innovations, although surviving works show the influence of older conventions of Byzantine imperial portraits and Polish "parsuna" portraits, rather than contemporary Western trends. Teams of Armory artists also restored and painted frescoes in the Kremlin cathedrals and the royal residences: for example, in the cathedrals of the Dormition (1632–1643) and Archangel (1652).

Russian Armory artists worked alongside foreign personnel, including many from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, who specialized in woodcarving, carpentry, and ceramics. Other foreigners worked as gunsmiths and clock- and instrument-makers. A handful of painters from western Europe encouraged the development of oil painting on canvas and introduced new Biblical and historical subjects into the artistic repertoire. By the late 1680s secular painters began to predominate: Armory employment rolls for 1687–1688 record twenty-seven icon painters and forty secular painters. Nonreligious painting assignments included making maps, charts, prints and banners, and decorating all manner of objects, from painted Easter eggs and chess sets to children's toys. Under the influence of Peter I (r. 1682–1725) and his circle, in the 1690s artists were called upon to undertake new projects, such as decorating the ships of Peter's new navy and constructing triumphal arches. In the early eighteenth century Peter transferred many Armory craftsmen to St. Petersburg, and by 1711 the institution was virtually dissolved, surviving only as a museum and treasury. From 1844 to 1851 the architect Karl Ton designed the present classical building, which houses and displays Muscovite and Imperial Russian regalia and treasures, vestments, carriages, gifts from foreign delegations, saddles, and other items.

See also: cathedral of the archangel; cathedral of the dormition; icons; kremlin; peter i; ushakov, simon fyodorovich

bibliography

Cracraft, James. (1997). The Petrine Revolution in Russian Imagery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hughes, Lindsey. (1979). "The Moscow Armoury and Innovations in Seventeenth-Century Muscovite Art." Canadian-American Slavic Studies 13:204–223.

Lindsey Hughes