Typology of Old Russian Iconography of St Nicholas from the 9th through 16th centuries. I.A. Shalina (St Petersburg)
One of the most stable iconographic versions in Byzantian art was the one of St Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia. Judging from the extant monuments his portrait image does not display any psychological variety and had undergone little change over the centuries. As distinct from Byzantine iconography of St Nicholas the Russian iconography treated his image in a variety of ways from very early times. Moreover, they followed either ready-made compositional schemes used in Byzantium for depicting other saints or created new compositions not found theretofore.
In the period from the 11th through 16th century in Russia a number of iconographic canonical versions appeared, particularly widespread were St Nicholas of Zaraisk and of Mozhaisk, complex bust and shoulder images, round icons with St Nicholas' «portrait», and also special compositions illustrating the local literary works about him. Add to this a large number of miracle-making icons bearing the Saint's image which gave rise to some novel and therefore easily recognizable types of depiction. Many traditional iconographic depictions acquired special names in Old Russian art. The names came from the repeated stories about the miracles performed by each of St Nicholas icons in question.