Shchirskii, Ivan

(monastic name, Innokentii). Year of birth unknown; died after 1714. Ukrainian painter and engraver.

Shchirskii worked in Vilnius (until 1682), in Chernigov (from 1683), at the Kiev-Pecherskaia Laura (from 1687), in Moscow (from 1688 to 1689), and in Lübech (from 1690). All that remains of Shchirskii’s works are 28 copper engravings. The engravings include works devoted to religious themes, for example, loann Zlatoust (1682). In the festive allegorical Heaven and Truth (1683) the artist reproduced images from real life. Shchirskii also did battle scenes, genre scenes, and landscapes. His interest in rendering three-dimensional space and form broke with the conventions of medieval art.