A 17th-century engraved Bible will be presented at the "Slavianski Bazaar in Vitebsk"

The exhibition "Bible for the People 1692-1696 by Vasily Koren. For the 325th anniversary of the first engraved book in Russia" will be presented on July 11 at "Slavyansky Bazaar in Vitebsk," as reported by the Museum of the History of Private Collections, where it will be held.

According to specialists, the exposition was brought to Vitebsk by the renowned Moscow graphic artist, monumentalist, founder and first president of the Academy of Folk Art, and the founder of modern Russian lubok, Viktor Penzin. The artist is engaged in the revival of wooden forms of 17th-18th century Russian luboks, engraved on wood, based on the originals and the atlas of D.A. Rovinsky. He makes prints from them, and primarily from the unique "Bible for the People" revived by him, created by the Belarusian Vasily Koren from Dubrovno, whose origin was established quite recently. It took the engraver four years to create the Bible: from 1692 to 1696.

"Koren's innovation was that he created the first engraved book in Russia, not a series of sheets. It consists of 36 sheets of engravings from the Book of Genesis (20 sheets) and the Apocalypse (16 sheets), dedicated to the creation and end of the world, the structure of the universe, and the relationships between God, the devil, and man. Viktor Penzin and his colleagues from the 'Workshop of Folk Graphics' took ten years (1982-1992) to reconstruct it," the museum emphasized.

The only surviving copy of the Bible is an original from the 17th century and is kept in the Department of Rare Books of the National Library of Russia. During the restoration of this rare exhibit, modern carvers transferred the drawing to a linden wood board, carved it, made a trial print, which was then compared with the original, and the slightest corrections were made. Moreover, the artists managed to restore lost parts of the image, frames, ornaments, words, letters, and other elements. The complete set of 36 engravings of the Bible is preserved in the main collections of the State Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg), the Vatican Pinacoteca (Italy), the Plovdiv Art Gallery (Bulgaria), the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid (Spain), the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), and many other renowned museums.

world. And in June this year, at the festival "Dnyaproŭskiya halasy ŭ Dubroŭna", Viktor Penzin presented the reconstructed album of Vasily Koren's Bible in his small homeland. As a sign of the deepest respect for the work of the great master, he handed over the reconstructed Vasily Koren's Bible and luboks of those times - more than 100 sheets of folk graphics - to the local museum.

In Vitebsk, you can get acquainted with the exhibition until September 30. The genre of the Bible for the people originated in Europe and was intended for illiterate people and poor priests. The name "Bible of the poor" is a generally accepted term in art history, which in Latin sounds like biblia pauperum.

BELTA.