page_title: Symbols of Ukrainian people
section_title: Holy images
hierarchical_section_title: Symbols of Ukrainian people / Holy images
caption_attribution_description: Українська: Ікона з експозиції музею домашньої ікони у Радомишлі
context_page_description: National symbols are the sacred attributes for Ukrainian people. In Ukrainian graphics there exist a number of symbols and images from national songs, legends. Such symbols and imagery are used in national customs and rituals. They are reproduced in embroidery on national costumes, ritual cloth—rushnyks, painted on crockery, in forged products, in carving, in bas-relief house decoration, in hearth painting, pottery, engraving and also in Ukrainian traditional Easter eggs—pysankas.
  Symbols are roughly divided into animalistic and floral symbols.
  Holy images were decorated by Ukrainian, Ruthenian masters, with stylized symmetrical flowers, inflorescences and "apples", located in the upper part of an icon.
  Among the motifs of decor of Ukrainian icons were such stylized flowers as clove, tulip, rose, lotus, pomegranate, lily, acanthus and vine.
  Among the objects-amulets floral patterns dominated.
context_section_description: In the adornment of hut holy images there can be traced certain affinity in decoration, weaving motifs, embroidery, ceramics, carving, wedding trunk painting, table paintings. This proves the mutual influence of different types of folk art.
  Holy image painting of Hutsulshchyna and Pokuttia regions have the following ornamental elements: 
  flower branches;
  tulips, combined with "Silesia rose";
  lilies;
  bells:
  wild rose.
  Podillia region holy images outstand with decorations of 
  lush flowers scattered with beams, bouquets of wreaths;
  palm and wreath;
  plants that are similar to palm branches or bells;
  branches-tassels;
  element of "apple" ornament.
  The distinctive feature of holy images of Sivershchyna region have on their background different sized beads. Such an artistic technique gives the impression that the icon was dressed in a robe that resembles a delicate lace. The frame of such an icon is the flowers, painted in modernist style using a wavy line.
  Iconography of Podniprovia region (Cherkasy region, in particular Chyhyrynshchyna), partly in Kyiv Polissia is poorly ornamented. The entire decoration is limited to two large flowers placed at the top of the icon or scattered throughout the background with small flowers in the form of stylized crosses of yellow and white.
  Symbols of Cherkashchyna region are characterized by conventional floral ornaments such as bouquets, peonies, grape vine stems (grapes are isomorphic and stylized images, which emphasizes the compact grouping of rounded, dotted or even linear elements, resembling abundant grape clusters; grapevine is a symbol of the Eucharist, a symbol of Christ, His blood shed for the redemption of mankind from sins
  The ornament in Slobozhanshchyna region icons is almost absent. On some icons, in particular, "The Virgin with the Baby", the background of the holy images is decorated with small asterisks (the stars are mostly octagonal, less often hexagonal, and, in exceptional cases, with four, five or another number of angles, placed on the entire background of the icon or only around the nymbs of the Theotokos and Jesus.
  The most diverse forms of flowers can be found on the icons of Central and Eastern Ukraine. The ornamental decoration is characterized by the picturesqueness  and ductility caused by the use of the impasto painting technique. Icons of Western Ukraine are characterized by a geometric interpretation of flowers, the basis and details of which are circles (sometimes ovals), bordered by the points, linear curl, which is achieved due to graphic techniques.
caption: Radomyshl icon
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