Hair on End. Demons and Sinners in Old Russian Iconography
Dmitriy I. Antonov
The way to depict the enemy in Christian art is a wide sphere of research, comprising multitude visual motifs. In Middle Ages, dealing with world demons allowed painters certain poetic licence for playing forms and details; however, there existed some “generic indicators” demonic figures, such as dark colouring, mixture anthropomorphic zoomorphic features other less evident markers. For Byzantine Old Russian iconography most important one was hair standing on end. Upright locks appeared fairly early served centuries form image enemy. They marked various characters, from infernal monsters personifications sins heretics transgressors, solidifying them into army Satan. Sometimes this motif used add dynamics picture show transformation character who became evil or, contrary, turned righteous Christian. article focused origin semantics essential marker, it help many-faced
Ikon