Ushakov, Simon

Ushakov, Simon (b Moscow, 1626; d Moscow, 1686).
Russian icon painter, active in Moscow. His talent was modest, but he is noteworthy as the first Russian artist to show the influence of Western painting. In about 1667 he wrote a treatise, Words to the Lovers of Icon Painting, in which he called for greater naturalism in the art, and although his own move in that direction was fairly superficial, he was decried by traditionalists in his own time for introducing a foreign ‘heresy’ and subsequently blamed by 19th-century scholars for starting the ‘decline’ of icon painting. Ushakov also painted portraits (although these do not survive) and made engravings for book illustration—another field in which he was a pioneer of Western influence. There are examples of his work in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.