The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is presenting a photographic exhibit of Russian Orthodox cathedrals and churches from the 11th to the 20th centuries in the McKenzie Gallery.
The photographs, which will be on view through Aug. 11, the were taken during research trips by Professor Emeritus A. Dean McKenzie, who retired in 1988 from the University of Oregon’s Department of Art History.
McKenzie will lecture on 2,000 years of Russian Orthodox Church architecture during an event at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 10, at the museum.
The photographs of sacred Russian Orthodox sites include cathedrals and churches in several architectural styles and in locations as diverse as St. Petersburg, Russia, and Unalaska, Alaska – a small city 800 miles southwest of Anchorage in the remote Aleutian Island chain. The photographs include the design details closely associated with Russian Orthodox architecture, such as tent-shaped roofs, tiered gables and onion domes.
Structures such as the Cathedral of Saint Vasily the Blessed (popularly known in English as St. Basil’s), located on the Red Square in Moscow will be known to many. Others, such as the Church of Saint Nicholas in Juneau, Alaska, may be less familiar. St. Basil’s represents the culmination of a national style that reached its peak during the 16th century, while the more contemporary Saint Nicholas indicates the extent to which aspects of that style were disseminated on a global scale.
In addition to the installation of eight photographs, visitors can view a more extensive digital photography display of 25 photographs in the gallery.
Examples of native Russian wooden churches, known as "kokoshniki," from which the more grand constructions for churches of later centuries evolved, are also included in the installation.
McKenzie – who received his master's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and his doctorate from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University – taught medieval art for more than 20 years at the University of Oregon before he and his wife, Lucile, donated funds to endow the McKenzie Gallery.
- from the UO's Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art