Posts by Jonathan Pageau
The Carved Icons of Elena and Sergio Nikolenko
I was recently made aware of two wonderful Russian carvers named Elena and Sergio Nikolenko. Their work is quite impressive, using ornament with spectacular precision. Their stylisation of faces ranges from the more iconic to more realistic features depending on pieces. The couple work on their icons together, with Elena being the designer and the one…
Continue reading »Where is Heaven?
This is post 2 of 4 in the series “Ancient Cosmology Today” Jonathan Pageau uses a phenomenological approach to explain traditional cosmology and its symbolism, explaining in what manner it is crucial to our experience of being in the world. Most of The Time The Earth Is Flat. Where is Heaven? Heaven and Earth in…
Continue reading »Ottawa International Byzantine Arts Symposium
I am quite excited to have been invited to participate in the first Ottawa International Byzantine Arts Symposium. The Symposium is organized around the work of George Kordis and will also feature concerts, an iconography workshops and icons from other artists. This is a great chance to meet master iconographer George Kordis. I know I am…
Continue reading »Nūn, Jonah and The Sign of The Fish
As we watch Oriental Christians in Iraq and Syria being branded, massacred, chased out of the cities they have occupied for nearly 2000 years, we shudder and pray and grind our teeth. As we watch the burning of Churches, the defacing of icons, the destruction of shrines, even that of the Holy Prophet Jonah we…
Continue reading »Most of The Time The Earth Is Flat.
This is post 1 of 4 in the series “Ancient Cosmology Today” Jonathan Pageau uses a phenomenological approach to explain traditional cosmology and its symbolism, explaining in what manner it is crucial to our experience of being in the world. Most of The Time The Earth Is Flat. Where is Heaven? Heaven and Earth in…
Continue reading »An Icon of St-John of Kronstadt by Fr.Silouan Justiniano
Father Silouan has sent me a picture of his most recent icon of Saint John of Kronstadt. I wanted to point out some of the elements which appear in his icon as examples of what Fr. Silouan has been discussing in his articles. In several of Fr. Silouan’s articles he has been addressing the need for…
Continue reading »Jonah – Resurrecting The Body and Saving The City
The icon of the Holy Prophet Jonah is one of the the most ancient images of Christianity. Like the story of this prophet, his image is a powerful symbol of death and resurrection. I want to look closely at the story of Jonah and its iconography because it brings together almost all the elements I…
Continue reading »Aidan Hart’s New Book on Icons in the Modern World
In the spirit of Aidan Hart’s last series for OAJ (Holy Icons in Today’s World: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), his most recent book, “BEAUTY MATTER SPIRIT: Icons in the Modern World”, focuses on the implications of the icon and its theology for our lives in the twenty-first century. 256 pages. Over 30 colour plates.…
Continue reading »Steatite Icons and Material Symbolism
One of the points many OAJ contributors have been trying to bring across is that the medium out of which sacred art is made and the artful human act of fabrication are important on a symbolic and theological level. This question of materiality and production have become crucial ones in our age of mechanical reproduction…
Continue reading »What is missing from Aronofsky’s Noah
In many of my past articles I have explored the symbolism of death and how it is related in the Bible and by our Tradition to the arts and technology, to hybridity and the foreigner, the serpent, to the cave, to Cain, to animality and to periphery in general. Aranofsky’s recent Noah movie deals intently with many…
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