One of the main problems that gripped the artistic process of the 17th century was the complicated, multifaceted interaction between the old and the new. In the art of the period, we see the traditional, symbolic, sacred, and medieval intertwine, combine, and conflict with the Western, material, rational, and innovative. The war between these two worlds was rich with both content and drama.

The art of the icon painters of the Kremlin Armoury, at first glance, does not seem to contain much indication of this. Quite the opposite – the artistic world of Simon Ushakov, Kirill Ulanov, Tikhon Filatyev, and Mikhail Milyutin is executed in a style exuding solemnity, calmness, and majesty. It does not depict the human figure from sharp angles or in hurried motion. The clothing worn by saints on their icons is not made of light material, does not have puffy folds, and does not include any flowing cloaks with beveled trim. The style of court icon painting of the end of the 17th and start of the 18th century is heavy and massive, which is facilitated by the combination of a liberal use of gold and a new approach to colour, marking its split from the traditional understanding of patches of colour and the adoption of the tonal colouring of the modern era.

The Armoury (or the Arsenal Prikaz) is a state institution that fell under the aegis of the Grand Palace Prikaz. The building that housed it in the 17th and early 18th centuries was part of the Kremlin, close to Troitskaya Tower. Its many functions included the organization of icon painting for Kremlin churches and executing commissions for members of the royal family. The scale of this work meant keeping icon painters on staff, who were given a monthly salary paid in food and money. It was the icon painters of the Kremlin Armoury who developed the new style of the 1650s and 1660s, which would later come to be known as “lifelike”. This style was an artistic avant-garde phenomenon in the world of icon painting at the time. Its appearance signified a definite rupture in the trajectory of the development of art and a breakdown of the symbolic medieval concept of image. The world, seen with “the eyes of the flesh”, as it ceased to be perceived as a mere reflection of eternity, enthralled the icon painters with its “worldly” beauty.

Simon Ushakov maintained a lively interest in Western European engraving, but also kept abreast of the work done by the Western painters who worked with him in the royal studios painting portraits in oil. He attempted to adapt some of the techniques commonly found in portraiture for use in icon painting. He and the other icon painters of the Armoury who worked in the “Ushakov tradition” placed equally strong emphasis on the three-dimensionality of form and its luminescence.

There were artists and craftsmen of all different kinds working in the royal studios. For the most part, icon painters worked in the Armoury, while jewelers (skanshchiki (skan being a Russian metalworking technique akin to filigree), diamond cutters, engravers, metal stampers, and others) were more often under the Silver and Gold Chambers. These three departments worked together closely. Prior to the end of 1663, before his move to the Kremlin Armoury, Simon Ushakov made sketches for metalwork items in the Silver Prikaz. Icons made by the icon painters of the Armoury were decorated with revetments made by Kremlin silversmiths.

Most of the pioneering achievements in the jewelry arts of the second half of the 17th century were also closely connected to the royal court studios. Compared to the sharp, structured forms of works of art from the first half of the century, the best examples of the art from the last part of the century astound viewers with their unusual wealth of colour, and sometimes even their excessive use of jewels or a certain blurring of form. Elements of the décor often get an additional layer of interpretation from the painting and acquire naturalistic features, showing the similarity in the paths of development taken by icon painting and the decorative and applied arts.

The tradition of decorating sacred items with zapony – metal fasteners that were, as a rule, rectangular and decorated with jeweled images of leaves – had migrated from the icon art of the first half of the 17th century into the decorative and applied arts by the last half. Examples of these zapony, decorated with rubies and emeralds, arranged in shining rows, and with a colour scheme enlivened with enamel, are found in such works as Simon Ushakov’s 1662/1663 revetment for the Christ Pantocrator icon and the 1664 Golgotha Cross altar cloth from the Chudov Monastery in Moscow.

Another method developed by the Moscow studios in the first part of the century was the technique of decoration using enamel paints on an enamel background, which ushered in a level of colourfulness and legitimacy as an artwork in and of itself that had not been seen prior.

Most of the pioneering achievements in the jewelry arts of the second half of the 17th century were also closely connected to the royal court studios. Compared to the sharp, structured forms of works of art from the first half of the century, the best examples of the art from the last part of the century astound viewers with their unusual wealth of colour, and sometimes even their excessive use of jewels or a certain blurring of form. Elements of the décor often get an additional layer of interpretation from the painting and acquire naturalistic features, showing the similarity in the paths of development taken by icon painting and the decorative and applied arts.

The tradition of decorating sacred items with zapony – metal fasteners that were, as a rule, rectangular and decorated with jeweled images of leaves – had migrated from the icon art of the first half of the 17th century into the decorative and applied arts by the last half. Examples of these zapony, decorated with rubies and emeralds, arranged in shining rows, and with a colour scheme enlivened with enamel, are found in such works as Simon Ushakov’s 1662/1663 revetment for the Christ Pantocrator icon and the 1664 Golgotha Cross altar cloth from the Chudov Monastery in Moscow. Another method developed by the Moscow studios in the first part of the century was the technique of decoration using enamel paints on an enamel background, which ushered in a level of colourfulness and legitimacy as an artwork in and of itself that had not been seen prior.