Two objects sit side by side. A small lime board, gessoed and painted in egg tempera, its ochre field gone deep and warm under a century of olifa varnish. A hand-copied chant book on cool grey laid paper, black kryuki hooks riding above the text line, red Shaidurov marks above the hooks fixing the pitch.

The red is the same red. Pigment analysis of these very panels found cinnabar in the icon and cinnabar in the manuscript — one vermilion binding wood to paper. This system is built on that fact: a dark varnished ground, a cool page laid into it, and one saturated red doing all the pointing.