Roman Frescoes of the 8th Century
John Sanidopoulos of the quality Mystagogy blog has posted a nice little article on the restoration being done of 8th century Byzantine style frescoes in the Santa Maria Antiqua church of Rome. On Monday October 1st Italy’s Culture Ministry allowed a rare peak at a (EURO)3 million ($3.8 million) restoration of medieval frescoes in the…
Continue reading »New Wall Painting
In August I completed a wall painting on the east wall of my medieval parish church, The Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Fathers, Shrewsbury, England. On some of the other walls there already exist simple medieval wall paintings, dating from around 1380 A.D., but the east wall was newly plastered during recent restoration work…
Continue reading »Church of St. John, Istanbul
I will be periodically posting short photo-essays illustrating historical Orthodox art and architecture that may be of interest to our readers. I have decided to start with some photos of the least-known Byzantine church in Istanbul, the tiny church of St. John the Baptist, now the Hirami Ahmet Pasha Mosque. It is the smallest Byzantine church…
Continue reading »Short Interview With Dr.Vladimir Morosan
Some of you might be interested in listening to the latest installment of “Ancient Faith Presents” on Ancient Faith Radio where Bobby Maddex interviews one of our collaborators, Dr. Vladimir Morosan, the founder and president of Musica Russica. As we have mentioned in another post, Musica Russica is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. In this interview, Dr.…
Continue reading »Wooden Vessels
Recently I had the chance of making a wooden chalice and diskos set for a priest. It was quite an interesting undertaking as it required a woodturner, a silversmith and myself to bring the whole thing together. Interestingly enough, the order for this set came as I was working on another wooden chalice, making stone roundels…
Continue reading »The Background Color of an Icon
This text is a resume of a conference-slideshow presented at a meeting of the Saint John of Damascus Association, June 15, 1996 and published in the Sacred Art Journal 17, 2, (summer) 1996. Thesis: The background of an icon should be either golden or of a light color. At the beginning of the slideshow, the…
Continue reading »An Icon of the Kingdom of God: The Integrated Expression of all the Liturgical Arts – Part 4: Architecture
This is post 4 of 12 in the series “An Icon of the Kingdom of God” Andrew Gould gives a unifying vision of how all the liturgical arts complement each other to create a living icon of the Kingdom of God. An Icon of the Kingdom of God: The Integrated Expression of all the Liturgical…
Continue reading »The Recovery of The Arts (pt.3): Memory of the Heart
This is post 3 of 3 in the series “The Recovery of The Arts” Jonathan Pageau Examines the duality in the traditional vision of art, and how it is transformed by Christ, moving from the garments of skin to liturgical art and how this vision contrasts to contemporary notions art. The Recovery of the Arts…
Continue reading »New Musica Russica Website
In order to celebrate its 25th anniversary, Musica Russica – a publisher and supplier of a broad spectrum of Orthodox musical recordings – has launched a new, more user-friendly website. OAJ contributor Vladimir Morosan, the founder and director of Musica Russica, said the newly-revamped site will “…make your interaction with our offerings much richer, more…
Continue reading »Opus Sectile Icons
There is a relatively famous image of St. Eudocia from the 10th or 11th century from Constantinople that has recently caught my attention. It is done in a technique called Opus Sectile. Unlike Mosaic which is the assembly of similarly shaped squares forming a pattern, Opus Sectile is when stone is cut in different shapes…
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