Contemporary Iconographers of Russia

From December 11, 2015 to January, 19, 2016 (Moscow, Russia) “Tsar’s Tower” exhibition hall, in Kazansky railway station, hosted a large-scale exhibition entitled “Contemporary Iconographers of Russia”. The exhibit featured sixty iconographers, masters of mosaic and gold embroidery, jewelers as well as architects from Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, Vladimir, Archangelsk and other Russian cities. The exhibit showcased an…

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Sacred Space, Sacred Art and The Power of Women

We live in a confused time.  Many of the basic foundations which hold the world together have been made fragile.   Up/down, center/periphery, inside/outside have all been eroded in their power to frame existence as we watch floodwaters rise around us.  One of the foundations systematically attacked through sophisticated rhetoric and political ideology is the complementary…

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The Robot, the Mutant and The Artist

[1]One of the weaknesses in our vision of the world is that we tend to look at what surrounds us from one side of an opposition.  This is inevitable as humanity’s existence unfolds like a wheel, waxing and waning, pulled by opposite forces from extreme to extreme.   These extremes feed each other, call each other…

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The Rich Classicism of Fr. Ilie Bobaianu

Last year we posted an article about young Romanian iconographers creating traditional icons looking partially to modern art for elements to include in their work.   With the spiritual renewal of Romania, there are also some wonderful iconographers exploring the rich strain of classicism in Byzantine icons. Fr. Ilie Bobaianu (Dantes) is a monk and iconographer who’s work shines particularly…

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The Pictorial Metaphysics of the Icon: Part III

This is post 3 of 3 in the series “The Pictorial Metaphysics of the Icon” Fr. Silouan Justiniano examines the controversial question of style in icons and whether or not composition and stylistic tropes are meaningful in the theology, making and use of the icon. The Pictorial Metaphysics of the Icon : Abstraction vs. Naturalism…

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