St Andrew Rublev

Andrew Rublev was a monk and iconographer formed in the spiritual world of St Sergius of Radonezh's disciples. He is first recorded in 1405, painting the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin alongside the great Theophanes the Greek, and in 1408 he frescoed the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir with his companion Daniel. For the Trinity monastery of St Sergius he painted his most celebrated work, the icon of the Holy Trinity: the three angels who visited Abraham, seated in a silent circle of mutual love around a single cup. Composed during years of plague and Tatar raids, it was painted, in the words of his contemporaries, 'so that by gazing at the Holy Trinity, the fear of the hateful discord of this world might be overcome.' He died around 1430 at the Andronikov monastery in Moscow and was canonized in 1988; the Church honors him as the model for all iconographers.