This volume provides the history of Russian icon painting from its origins to the beginning of the sixteenth century. Viktor Lazarev deliberately followed these chronological limits, since the "Golden Age" of icon painting in Russia was the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, after which followed a rapid decline.

In a clear and intelligible form, using extensive scholarly material, Lazarev describes the birth of the Russian national painting on wood plate, the technique and aesthetics of Russian icons, the main schools of icon painting, and discusses the work of significant artists.