Simon Ushakov

Simon (Pimen) Fyodorovich Ushakov (; – 25 June 1686) was a Russian icon painter.

Together with Fyodor Zubov and Fyodor Rozhnov, he is associated with the comprehensive reform of the Russian Orthodox Church undertaken by Patriarch Nikon. Ushakov is also credited with popularizing the genre of secular portrait painting in Russia, known as parsuna.

Early life

Almost nothing about the early years of Simon Ushakov is known. His birth date is deduced from his inscription on one of the icons: "In the year 7166 painted this icon Simon Ushakov son, being 32 years of age".

Career At the age of 22, he became a paid artist of the Silver Chamber, affiliated with the armory prikaz. The bright, fresh colours and exquisite, curving lines of his proto-baroque icons caught the eye of Patriarch Nikon, who introduced Simon to the tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. He became a great favourite with the royal family and was eventually in 1664 assigned to the Kremlin Armoury, run by an educated boyar called Bogdan Khitrovo.

Ushakov had a lot of pupils and associates and even published a short treatise on icon-painting entitled A Word to Loving-Meticulous Icon Painting in 1664. Some of the more conservative Russian priests, such as archpriest Avvakum, regarded his icons as "lascivious works of devil", for they were too Western for their tastes. Avvakum, in particular, alleged that Ushakov painted his "fleshly saints" after his own portly appearance. Later scholars in the 19th-century regarded Ushakov as starting the "decline" of icon painting.