Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
"Saint Boris and Saint Gleb were among the first official Russian saints, canonized in 1071. They were princes and sons of Vladimir, the ruler of Kievan Russia who adopted Orthodox Christianity for himself
and for the region in 988. Both were devout individuals, murdered by their half-brother Svyatopolk, who wanted the kingdom for himself.
Russian people regarded the princely martyrs as their protectors and intercessors, and there are many stories of miraculous healing and military victories attributed to their help. Th ey symbolize brotherly
love and devotion. Here they are shown on horseback, dressed in gold parade armor and helmets and carrying lances with pennants fl ying.
Boris has a short beard and the younger Gleb is beardless. Christ blesses them from the clouds in the upper right. The elegant horses are drawn with an emphasis on decorative lines. In the same way, the rendering of the mountainous landscape is fanciful, in the style of Byzantine manuscripts. In the lower left, a fi gure (evidently Svyatopolk, nicknamed
“the cursed” ) falls into the jaws of a monster in the bowels of the earth, the hell mouth. This element is something new in the representation of
the two princes, usually shown on horseback alone in a landscape. The artist of this painting worked at the monastery of the Holy Trinity in St. Petersburg and was an iconographic innovator."