Editing Saint Basil's Cathedral (section)

== Colour ==
The church acquired its present-day vivid colours in several stages from the 1680s<ref name=K402 /> to 1848.<ref name=K401 /> Russian attitude towards colour in the 17th century changed in favour of bright colours; [[icon]]ographic and [[mural]] art experienced an explosive growth in the number of available paints, dyes and their combinations.<ref name=BD58>Buseva-Davydova, p. 58</ref> The original colour scheme, missing these innovations, was far less challenging. It followed the depiction of the Heavenly City in the [[Book of Revelation]]:<ref name=K74 />

{{blockquote
| And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.<br />And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats, I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.
| [[Book of Revelation|Revelation]], 4:3–4 ([[Authorized King James Version|KJV]])
}}
[[File:Sant Vasily cathedral in Moscow.JPG|thumb|200px|left|Colour scheme of the cathedral seen by night]]
The 25 seats from the biblical reference are alluded to in the building's structure, with the addition of eight small onion domes around the central tent, four around the western side church and four elsewhere. This arrangement survived through most of the 17th century.<ref>Kudryavtsev, pp. 72, 74</ref> The walls of the church mixed bare red brickwork or painted imitation of bricks with white ornaments, in roughly equal proportion.<ref name=K74>Kudryavtsev, p. 74</ref> The domes, covered with tin, were uniformly [[Gilding|gilded]], creating an overall bright but fairly traditional combination of white, red and golden colours.<ref name=K74 /> Moderate use of green and blue ceramic inserts provided a touch of [[rainbow]] as prescribed by the Bible.<ref name=K74 />

While historians agree on the colour of the 16th-century domes, their shape is disputed. Boris Eding wrote that they most likely were of the same onion shape as the present-day domes.<ref>Brunov, pp. 65, 67</ref> However, both Kolomenskoye and Dyakovo churches have flattened hemispherical domes, and the same type could have been used by Barma and Postnik.<ref>Brunov, p. 67</ref>