The Icon and the Axe

wooden board orTwhich the painting was ??? foundry which forged the first cannon also made-the

being ttielted back into metal for artillery in time of war. The beJLJili£jb£JconJ_was taken from Byzantium to provide aesthetic eiaboratian for th£_"right^praising" of ?^fand"bT5tK media came to be

the "primitive*; first 6ells;nffi3these, werealwjrysinjjerii ?\

used ^witti_ey£n_greater intensity and imagination than in Constantinople. The development of the elaborate and many-tiered Russian bell tower- with its profusion of bells and onion-shaped gables-parallels in many ways that^of the iconostas^JThejich "mauvP^finging"oFbeTIs~so that "people cannot hear one another in conversation"83 became the inevitable accompaniment of icon-bearing processions on special feast days. There were almosl-as-???? bejjs_agd ways to~nri~g ftl^ asTconTlmd ways to di^glay them. By the early. fKteenf^jSitury^Russia??? evolveadistinctive models that differed from the bells of Byzantium, Western Europe, or the Orient. The Russian emphasis on massive7immovable*~cStalD31s sounded by metal gongs and clappers led to a greater sonority and resonance than the generally smaller, frequently swinging, and often wooden bells of the contemporary West". Although Russia never produced carillons comparable to those of the Low Countries, it did develop its own methods and traditions of ringing different-sized bells in series. By the sixteenth century, it has been estimated that there were morejhan five thousand bdk_ in the four huntod^hjKche^of^loiiCjPjv^one^'

Just asjhe icon wasiautone element in a pictorial culture that included the fresco, the illuminated holy te^anJjEilillustrated chronicle, so the beU^^^^rt^TJTorrej^of soun^^o^id^^y^iate^niinable chanted church services, ppuTartyinnsmtcTballajIs, and the^ secular improvisations of wandering folk singers armed with a variety of stringed instruments. Sights and sounds pointecTthe wayTo God, not philosophic speculation or literary subtlety. Servjcgs~were committed to memory without benefit of missal or prayer book;, and the "obedient listeners" in monasteries were subjected to oral instruction. Not only were the saints said to be "very like" the holy forms on the icons, but the very word for education suggested "becoming like the forms" {obrazovanie).

The interaction between sight and sound is also remarkable. If the iconography of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Russia drew special inspiration from holy singing, and the Russian icon came to be a kind of "abstract musical arabesque . . . purified, like music, of all but its direct appeals to the spirit,"85 so the new method of musical notation thafwas" simultaneously coming into being in Muscovy had a kind of hieroglyphic quality. The authority of the classical Byzantine chant appears to have waned after the fourteenth century-without giving way to any other method of clearly defining the intervals and correlations of tones. In its place appeared the "signed chant": a new tradition of vocal ornamentation in which "melody not only flowed out of words, but served as the mold on which words were set in bold relief."86 When written down, the embellished red and black hooked notes offered only a shorthand guide to the direction

of melody rather than a precise indication of pitch; but the vivid pictorial impression created by the signs gave rise to descriptive names such as "the great spider," "the thunderbolt," "two in a boat," and so on.87

Though even.less is known about secular than sacred music in this early period, there ware apparently patterns* of beauty in it, based on repetition with variation by different voices. The exalted "rejoicing" (blagovestie) of the bells used an overlapping series of sounds similar to that which was used in the "many-voiced" church chant-producing an effect"that:w^'anhe^aniSTime~clSo]Dh6nous and hypnotic.

Russians Farther same mixture of joyful religious exultation and animistic superstition in the ringing of the bells as in the veneration of icons. Just as icons were paraded to ward off the evil spirits of plague, drought, and fire, so were bells rung to summon up the power of God against these forces. Just as icons were paraded around the boundaries to sanctify a land claim, so bells were rung to lend solemnity to official gatherings. In both cases, spiritual sanctification was more valued than legal precision. As with thelc^rT-TW-^nth'ffig'fjeTl;^' ????????????1?????1? analogical power to lift men up toGocTi

The weak sounds of wood and metal remind us of the unclear, mysterious words of the prophets, but the loud and vigorous play of bells is like the rejoicing of the Gospel, radiating out to all the corners of the universe and lifting one's thoughts to the angelic trumpets of the last day.88

The forging andringing of bells, like the painting and veneration of

icons, was a sacrameritaTlcTirT Muaiuvy. a means of bringing tne wofl""of

God into the presence of men._fW^wora^wasThe^goincT1St.ToHn's"'