Icons in Japan and Alaska

瓦西里·克里科夫（Vasily Kriukov）应该是阿拉斯加第一个图标画家。在对克里科夫在阿留申群岛的乌纳拉斯卡和锡克塔的圣米歇尔大教堂绘制的圣像的研究中，很明显，克里科夫和他之后在阿拉斯加的圣像画家忠实地复制了俄罗斯传教士带到阿拉斯加的原始俄罗斯圣像。这种态度与1889年后在日本创作偶像时的山下仁的态度是一样的。所以有可能尼古拉·卡萨特金跟随他的年长传教士因诺肯季·维尼亚米诺夫，也接受了同样的中世纪关于圣像的观点，这一观点是在787年拜占庭第二次尼西亚会议上确立的。这种中世纪的观念与强调原创性和艺术家创作的现代艺术观念相反。它是神圣和美的象征，由俄罗斯传教士传播到包括阿拉斯加和日本在内的亚洲。

Vasily Kriukov should have been the first icon painter in Alaska. In the research of the icons supposed to be made by Kriukov in Unalaska in Aleutian Islands and in St. Michel's Cathedral in Sikta, it has become clear that Kriukov and the icon painters after him in Alaska have copied faithfully the original Russian icons which were brought into Alaska by the Russian missionaries. This attitude is the same with the way Rin Yamashita took when she made icons in Japan after 1889. So it is possible that Nikolai Kasatkin who followed his elder missionary Innokenti Veniaminov also took the same medieval idea about icons established in 787 in the second Nicaean Counsil in Byzantium. This medieval notion was contrary to the modern idea of art with the emphasis upon originality and artists' creation. It is the idea of the representation of the sacred and the beautiful and was preached by Russian missionaries to Asia including Alaska and Japan.