The Kremlin Armory school of icon-painters appeared in the 1640s, following the dissolution of the Iconic Chancery (Prikaz) and affiliation of the Iconic Chamber with the Armory. The school was run by boyard Khitrovo, a fine art connoisseur with SImon Ushakov put as a supervisor of the icon-painting works. Other masters included Kondratyev, Bezmin, Yakov Kazanets Iosif Vladimirov, Georgy Zinoviev, Nikita Pavlovets, Tikhon Filatyev, Fedor Zubov and Kirill Ulanov.

Simon Ushakov’s most favorite theme was the image of the Savior Not Made by Hands – the icon with a strong emphasis on naturalistic depiction of Christ’s face. Naturalism, a very distinctive painting style of Simon Ushakov, is generally very typical of the Armory iconographers who tended to appeal to the Western art culture.

The icon of Our Lady of Vladimir entitled as the Planting and Spreading of the Tree of the Russian State (1668) and depicting all of the most prominent figures of Ancient Rus was the triumph of the Russian statehood. The icons produced by the Kremlin Armory are distinguished for the three-dimensional space, direct perspective, worked-out details, and architectural forms and landscapes. Palette was predominantly composed of the shades of red colors with golden coloring as a symbol of the divine world, yet greenish-blue shades were often used as a background.