Anna Pokrovsky Gouriev is a professional iconographer working in the United States. Originally from Russia, she is the daughter of Ksenia Pokrovsky who was one of the instrumental voices for the rediscovery of traditional iconography in the 20th century. Jonathan Pageau teaches with her at the Hexaemeron School of Ecclesial Arts, and it is in […]
Archimandrite Sophrony, painting Christ at the Last Supper, early 1980s, the Monastery of St John the Baptist, Refectory.[1] Image: ©The Stavropegic Monastery of Saint John the Baptist, Essex. Editorial note: This is the second part of a series on the artistic path and iconographic legacy of Saint Sophrony (Sakharov) as seen through a collection […]
How to Conceive a Paradigm Shift? In the end, of course, we cannot naïvely expect that this change of paradigm can be imposed by some “official directive.” As the “chair and apple” example shows, such change happens neither easily nor suddenly. The need for change can be voiced, or even generated by an individual, […]
On the Need for the New Paradigm First, the suggested shift in paradigm is not just playing with words, nor is it merely for amusement or for increasing our vocabulary. Neither are we following some fashionable intellectual trend. From the conventional meaning of the term paradigm, I would emphasize its ‘active’ semantic aspects. These suppose […]
It could be said that Fr. Stamatis Skliris ranks as one of the most important, albeit idiosyncratic and challenging, contemporary iconographers residing in Greece today: idiosyncratic, because his style stands out in a category of its own, in its personal, expressive potency and unique, at times odd, pictorial synthesis; challenging, because he often breaks all […]
The Exhibition In late June, I was blessed with the opportunity to spend a week in Paris, attending an exhibition in honor of the 50th anniversary of the repose of iconographer monk Gregory Kroug. The event ran from May 14th through June 30th, and included a curated exhibition of Kroug’s iconography displayed in the […]
Truth is truth wherever it is found. In fact, it is all the more delicious when found in unexpected places. I was at the opening of an exhibition of The St John’s Bible, for which I had been one of the illuminators, and fell into conversation with one of the professors at Minnesota University. We […]
This is the 4th and last post in the series “Imagination, Expression, Icon: Reclaiming the Internal Prototype”: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. When you make an icon, do not copy it exactly… -Elder Sophrony[i] Now that we’ve clearly defined the terms nous, techne, Tradition, imagination and expression, we’re in a better […]
This is part 2 of a series: Part 1 Because they are the works of God, who is Himself good, the senses and sensible objects are good; but they cannot in any way be compared with the intellect [nous] and with intelligible realities. -St. Thalassios, On Love, Self-control and Life in Accordance with the […]
We often forget that our contemporary art, although the offspring of the 20th century revolutionary avant-garde, has its own set of artistic dogmas, its form of “orthodoxy”, so to speak. Ironically, although the avant-garde might have shattered the stifling shackles of the Academy, it has now itself become another form of restrictive academy, forming an […]