Andrei Rublev (or Andrey Rublov)

If you google “Andrei Rublev” or “Andrey Rublov” (or whatever transliteration of the Cyrillic alphabet you choose—those pesky Russians ought to learn to use the Latin alphabet), you’ll get two kinds of results. One will be about the 15^th-Century Russian icon painter, who’s responsible for what is perhaps the most famous icon in the world, the Old Testament Trinity, also known as The Hospitality of Abraham. Rublev was born in 1360 (or maybe 1370) and painted icons and frescoes in the Cathedral of the Annunciation in Moscow in 1405 before moving on to Vladimir in 1408, where he did the same thing at their Cathedral of the Assumption. In 1425-1427, he painted the Cathedral of St. Trinity in the Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra, and ended his days in 1430 (or perhaps 1427) at the Andronik Monastery in Moscow. And that’s about all we know about one of the greatest painters to ever live. He was born, painted frescoes and icons in four places, and then died.

The other esults you’ll get if you google “Andrei Rublev” are on the 1966 Russian film of the same name. Its director Andrei Tarkovsky took Rublev’s bio—such as it is—and made a mesmerizing three-and-a-half hour film that is perhaps my favorite of all time. Because so little is known about Rublev’s life, it can hardly be called a biography; rather, Tarkovsky hangs a rich tapestry of medieval Russian life upon the bare bones of Rublev’s life, almost like clothing upon a department-store dummy or ornaments upon a Christmas tree. In doing so, the title character is peripheral to the action through most the movie, and is in fact absent in much of its final episode. The resulting film is slow-moving, meditative, and filled with the most haunting black-and-white imagery I’ve ever seen. Robert Bird, author of a book about the film (Andrei Rublev, British Film Institute:London, 2005) writes that it has “remarkable ability to convey atmosphere and mood.”

But if the film isn’t really about Rublev’s life, then what is it about? Tarkovsky was a Christian whose faith was profoundly affected looking at Rublev’s icons; the movie is about that as much as anything else. And as Bird says, “you can’t depict faith on film, so the whole film is about what cannot be shown.” And (hold your cards and letters) I’m not equating the Bible with Andrei Rublev, but that’s one way to look at the Gospels. The gospel writers took the skeleton of a life—born in Nazareth (or was it Bethlehem?), baptized by John, preached in Galilee, traveled to Jerusalem, spiked to a tree after one year (or was it three?)—and created narratives that are about Jesus’ life, certainly, but in the end about so much more. The Gospels are profoundly theological in nature, and describe the ultimate mystery of God’s interaction with humankind. Is it any wonder that they are powerfully symbolic and almost infinitely dense? After all, they are about faith, and you can’t describe that in words. Like Andrei Rublev, the Gospels are about that which cannot be shown. Perhaps that’s why without the intervention of the Holy Spirit, teaching us how they must be apprehended, they’re nothing but words on paper.