Alypius (secular name Alexei Ivanovich Konstantinov, , Yaroslavl Governorate, Russian Empire – , Valaam, Grand Duchy of Finland, Russian Empire) – a Russian icon painter, hieromonk of Valaam Monastery, who became known as the creator of the Valaam Icon of the Mother of God, venerated in the Russian Orthodox Church and the Finnish Orthodox Church as a miracle-working icon. Alypius was a member of the commission for the construction of the Transfiguration Cathedral of Valaam Monastery and its bell tower, led the monastery's icon-painting workshop and the icon-painting section of the art school at the monastery.Описание Валаамского монастыря и скитов его [A Description of the Valaam Monastery and Its Sketes]. 5-е изд., испр. и доп. СПб.: Типография И. Генералова, 1904. 87 p.
The vivid and complex personality of the artist attracted the attention of his contemporaries. He was written about by the traveller and journalist Vasily Nemirovich-Danchenko; the writer and publicist, representative of the conservative–Christian current of social thought Ivan Shmelev, and the poet, playwright and translator Konstantin Sluchevsky.
A significant number of documents relating to his life and work are preserved in the archive of New Valaam Monastery. Interest in the life and work of Alypius at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century arose following the publicationAndreeva, N. A. Сказание об обретении образа Пресвятой Богородицы, именуемого «Местная Валаамская» [The Tale of the Finding of the Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos Known as the "Local Valaam Icon"]. In: Валаамский монастырь и его подвижники [The Valaam Monastery and Its Ascetics], comp. A. Bertash. Valaam: Transfiguration Valaam Monastery, 2011. Pp. 524–530. of the Tale of the Valaam Icon of the Mother of God found in the archive of New Valaam Monastery.
Art historian Svetlana Bolshakova held that the work of Hieromonk Alypius marked a turning point in the development of the artistic style of the Valaam icon-painting workshop. She associated with his name the transition of Valaam Monastery – both in the creation of icons and in monumental murals – to the principles of the academic school of painting.
Biography
Alexei Konstantinov was born on into the family of petty bourgeois Konstantin Ivanov and Matrona Vasilyeva in the village of Lipnikovo in Rybinsk Uyezd of Yaroslavl Governorate.
Alexei Konstantinov studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, was awarded a small silver medal, but was unable to complete his studies due to health problems.
Impressionable and inclined towards solitude, he dreamed in his youth of leaving the world and entering a monastery. On 3 September 1875, he was admitted to Valaam Monastery as someone "residing for spiritual contemplation and joining monastic life". On 23 May 1879, he became a novice; on 12 May 1884 he took monastic vows with the name Alypius in honour of the Venerable Alypius of the Caves, the first known Russian icon painter by name; on 28 June 1892 he was ordained as a hierodeacon, and in 1893 as a hieromonk. In 1896, Hieromonk Alypius was awarded a silver medal to be worn on the chest on the Alexander ribbon; and also in 1896 he was awarded the nabedrennik.
Having become a well-known icon painter, Alypius retained his humility and modesty, and often performed "obedience at the refectory". He had a particular veneration of the Mother of God. He painted the cathedral icon of the Valaam Mother of God while the brethren read an akathist in her honour.
He died on on the day of commemoration of Alypius of the Kiev Caves. A brief entry in the metrical book reads: "...died from burns, buried on 18 August. The funeral was served by Abbot Gabriel in concelebration". Abbot Gabriel himself makes no mention of this fact in his diary. The monastery's meteorological records for 1901 note two natural disasters that Bolshakova, in her dissertation, associates with this event:
A month before the death of Hieromonk Alypius, Sosnovets Island burned down. Three days before 17 August, during the early liturgy, lightning broke through a window in the dome of the Transfiguration Cathedral and split a wooden beam on the bell tower to which a bell was attached.
However, Bolshakova was unable to find any information about casualties in these events in the official documents of the monastery.
The exact burial place in the Brotherly Cemetery of Valaam Monastery has not been established, but a granite gravestone survives, inscribed:
Here rest the remains of the Hieromonk Alypius, died 17 August 1901, aged 50. A skilled icon painter and a diligent toiler. Holy fathers and brethren, forget me not when ye pray!
Personality
The writer Vasily Nemirovich-Danchenko met Alypius in the Valaam workshop during his journeys through the Russian Empire, and described him as a small, frail man whose golden hair "stood like a cap on his head and could not be combed through with any comb", with sad, kind eyes and a pale, seemingly tormented face. He also noted the authority that the quite young monk enjoyed among the monastery's brethren. One of the monks commented in his presence about the painter: "the Lord granted him a talent for the benefit of the brethren – such a talent as even worldly, loud-acclaimed artists might vainly envy!" When the writer wanted to meet Konstantinov personally and view his works, he "got embarrassed, blushed, and grew flustered". The artist confessed to the writer that after conceiving a painting, he never began its execution immediately, waiting instead for inspiration from God.
Nemirovich-Danchenko was struck by the way the monastery encouraged the icon painter's work: Konstantinov was supplied with French and English "illustrations" on subjects on which he had already finished working. In his book Muzhitskaya obitel ("A Peasant Monastery"), the publicist wrote:
One feels indignant and annoyed on his behalf. A living soul, struggling. Even worse – not struggling, but having made peace, considering this place the finest on all the earth, and his cassock and skufia the highest happiness... Clearly, talent will little by little wither. Soon these sad eyes will dim, and his lively, expressive face, on which impressions constantly shift, will take on the dry monastic crease – then too the pure lines of drawing will coarsen, the delicate colours will fade, life will die in the figures, and from an artist who promised much there will emerge a plain, run-of-the-mill icon painter...
The writer noted the "feminine softness" of Alypius's icon-painting style, calling him the Valaam Raphael. Despite his outward fragility and the distinctive character of his artistic style, Alexei Konstantinov was persistent and resolute: according to Nemirovich-Danchenko, one of the reasons for Alypius's departure to the monastery was a conflict with his parents, who did not want to see their son become an icon painter and beat him. Bolshakova noted that Alypius executed those church murals that have a complex symbolic and dogmatic content at their foundation.
Alypius was also a member of the commission for the construction of a stone cathedral church with a bell tower. Among his papers there survives a draft of an unknown akathist to the Mother of God which, in the opinion of Archpriest Gennady Belovolov – biographer of Alexei Konstantinov – was composed by Alypius painter himself.
Rejoice, O Intercessor who putteth us not to shame! Rejoice, O most gracious Mother of God! Rejoice, O Purification of the world! Rejoice, O Joy of the sorrowful and Harbour of the storm-tossed! Rejoice, O thou who helpest all who are in need! Do thou therefore preserve me also, O Virgin, O Most Pure Lady of all the sorrowful!
Icon painting and artistic activities In his adolescence, Konstantinov showed aptitude for the visual arts, which his parents did not understand. The young man's interest in painting got the monastery's leadership attention (V. R. Ryvkin claimed that Alexei Konstantinov was already an icon painter before arriving at Valaam Monastery) and he was assigned to the icon-painting workshop.
Studying
The monastery treasurer Ionathan, who was acting as abbot, sent Konstantinov to study at the Imperial Academy of Arts. With the assistance of academy rector Fyodor Iordan (the writer, journalist and local historian Anatoly Bakhtiaryov saw a portrait of Fyodor Iordan with a dedicatory inscription in Alypius's workshop at Valaam) he was enrolled. His name does not appear in the documents of the Imperial Academy of Arts, and his biographer Gennady Belovolov suggests that Konstantinov was an external student. He presumably studied from 1879 to 1882; these dates are reconstructed by Bolshakova in her dissertation from the facts that in 1878 Konstantinov was still at Valaam and in that same year painted the Valaam Icon of the Mother of God there, and in 1882 he received a silver medal from the academy – though not in person, as was customary: Konstantinov was again at Valaam, and the medal was sent to him there by the academy. He received the small honorary silver medal for a work on a subject from sacred history shown at an academic exhibition in 1882. Art historian Irina Buseva-Davydova considered the award to be evidence of his considerable talent. Bakhtiaryov, in his essay Valaam Monastery, claims that this award was given to Konstantinov for a "drawing" of the Nativity of Christ, which he personally saw at Valaam. Konstantinov was unable to complete the Academy of Arts owing to his state of health. According to another version, the cause was a lack of funds.
Alypius as an icon painter While engaged in icon painting, Alypius did not abandon secular painting and poetry. He often went into the forest to make en plein air sketches ("to paint God's nature in silence"). Abbot Ionathan saw a danger to a monk in this. When he called Alypius a lazybones, the artist left the monastery for two years. Bolshakova reconstructed the dating of this event – 1889–1890 – on the basis of Abbot Ionathan's correspondence. Gennady Belovolov found documents in the archive of New Valaam Monastery that allowed the event to be dated precisely. In August 1889 Konstantinov requested leave for two months to go to Rybinsk "to visit relatives", but did not return by the appointed time. He submitted a petition to the church authorities for a transfer to one of the monasteries of Yaroslavl Governorate. The matter reached the Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, who personally met the icon painter at Trinity-Sergius Hermitage near Saint Petersburg in the summer of 1890. Pobedonostsev sympathised with Konstantinov's situation and recommended that his request be granted. During this time Konstantinov suffered from insomnia and was tormented by pangs of conscience. He was compelled to return to the monastery and asked the abbot's forgiveness. The obituary of Alypius published in the journal Istorichesky Vestnik (Historical Herald) mentions that, already a monk, Alypius received his first award for a composition at one of the academic exhibitions. (The obituary does not specify the time of this award."Алипий" [Alipiy]. Исторический вестник [Historical Herald]. 1901. Vol. 86, no. 12. P. 1302.)