Nicholas Kotar Publishes The Song of Sirin
(Editor’s note: We are excited to announce that Nicholas Kotar, who has written a few great pieces for OAJ, has recently published his first novel. Here is a version of his press release.) Orthodox Writer writes a fantasy novel inspired by Russian fairy tales and the Lives of the Saints. Discouraged by the lack…
Continue reading »Conserve or Restore? A Question of Ancestor Kisses
Conserve: To protect from loss or harm; to keep quantity and quality constant through physical or chemical reactions or evolutionary changes. Restore: To bring back into existence or use; to return to an original condition. Close in definition, the differences when applied to art treasures can be catastrophic. Consider the botched effort to “restore” Elías…
Continue reading »Notes on Method
St. Mamas of Caesarea by Fr. Silouan Justiniano. Egg tempera on wood, 46 in. x 31 in. One has to know technique, but one also needs to know art. An icon should be like a ‘painting’, like a prayer written with beautiful letters…There are many craftsmen, but few real iconographers. Make an icon, a…
Continue reading »Jordan Peterson, Religious Symbolism and Popular Culture
For 5 years now I have been writing on many subjects for OAJ. Most of my attention has been to elucidate the patterns in iconography and liturgical arts and how these patterns relate to Scripture, to other traditions all the while acting as a map of how we should live in the world as Christians.…
Continue reading »Symeon van Donkelaar: Local Color in Icons
(Editor’s comment: Symeon van Donkelaar is a Canadian iconographer. I find his work fascinating as it is an exploration of the flatter and more stylized threads of iconography, Coptic art, early Medieval Spanish art as well as what was developed in Central and Northern Europe before the Gothic period. Lines are bold and highly calligraphic. Color…
Continue reading »Important: New Mailing List
Hello to all our subscribed readers. One of the upgrades we will be going forward with as the new site has been put up is to change the service we are using to send out news and articles. In doing this there is always the risk that our newsletters will be interpreted as spam by…
Continue reading »Introducing The New OAJ
Believe or not, this week we celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Orthodox Arts Journal. As an editorial team, we are excited to unveil the makeover we had announced when we asked you all for your support last year. The redesign was done by Fr. Joel Wilson of Rolla Creative. The architectural banner and our…
Continue reading »A Gospel Cover Crafted in the Tradition of a Medieval Treasure Binding
I have always been fascinated by liturgical book bindings from the Middle Ages. Their perfect union of leather, wood and metal, as a supple and tactile work of functional art, is singularly satisfying. In contrast, there is something lacking in most contemporary gospel covers, which are normally made by applying decoration overtop the cardboard covers…
Continue reading »Divine Patterns in the Life of Moses
This is post 2 of 2 in the series “Divine Patterns In Story and Image” Jonathan Pageau traces the patterns in Biblical stories and the Church Fathers, showing how they repeat themselves everywhere and act as a cosmic map. Divine Patterns in Story and Image pt.1 Divine Patterns in the Life of Moses Divine Patters…
Continue reading »Divine Patterns in Story and Image pt.1
This is post 1 of 2 in the series “Divine Patterns In Story and Image” Jonathan Pageau traces the patterns in Biblical stories and the Church Fathers, showing how they repeat themselves everywhere and act as a cosmic map. Divine Patterns in Story and Image pt.1 Divine Patterns in the Life of Moses Part 1:…
Continue reading »