Pskov School

one of the local schools of Russian medieval art. The Pskov school developed in Pskov and its domains during the period of feudal disintegration.

Early structures of brick (see PLINTHOS) and stone retained many architectural traditions of the Novgorod school (the cathedral of St. John the Baptist Convent, prior to 1243) yet at the same time developed a new approach to the design of a cruciform, domed church (the Spaso-Preobrazhenskii Cathedral of the Mirozha Monastery, prior to 1156).

The most common type of parish church developed at the end of the 14th century. Known from 15th-century examples, such churches were cubic, four-piered, and three-apsed. There was a single cupola and a multipitched roof (the church of the village of Kobyl’e Gorodishche, 1462). The roof was often supported by stepped vaults (Uspenie Church, Meletovo, 1463). In the 15th century a small, pillarless church with a drum resting on intersecting cylindrical arches was developed (the church of St. Nicholas Kamennogradskii, 16th century [?]). Numerous chapels, narthexes, and porches were added to the churches, which together with the bell towers of many bays, formed a picturesque asymmetric ensemble. Fortress architecture also developed.

In the 16th and 17th centuries huge multistory dwellings were constructed for the merchants (the three-story Pogankin Chambers, prior to 1645). Beginning in the 14th century, construction was done with stone slabs of local origin, which were coated with lime and then whitened. The contrast between the simple geometric masses with the emphatically plastic treatment of the exterior surfaces imparts an expressive quality to the religious, civic, and military architecture of the Pskov school.

The Pskov school of painting arose in the mid-13th century and reached its zenith in the late 14th and early 15th centuries. It is marked by expressive imagery, intense color, stark unpainted areas, and impasto brushwork (the frescoes in the Rozhdestvo Bogoroditsy Cathedral at the Snetogorskii Monastery, 1313; the frescoes in the Uspenie Church, Meletovo, 1465; the icons Assembly of Our Lady and Saints Paraskeva, Barbara, and Juliana, both late 14th century, Tret’iakov Gallery).

The decline of the Pskov school of painting occurred at the turn of the 16th century, but the local traditions in architecture survived longer.