Towards a Great Pictorial Synthesis: Interview with Ioan Popa

By Fr. Silouan Justiniano | April 16, 2018 |

The following is an interview with Romanian master iconographer Ioan Popa. He’s one of the leading representatives of the contemporary icon revival in Romania, focusing in both panel and monumental fresco painting. Our conversation touches on his artistic development, aspects of the professional training of iconographers in Romania and the challenge of creative engagement with…

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From Cubism To The Romanesque (To The Orthodox Icon?)

By Peter Brooke | August 28, 2017 |

In a comment on my article ‘The Seventh Ecumenical Council, the Council of Frankfurt & the Practice of Painting’, Baker Galloway asks if ‘to develop towards a contemporary indigenous iconography in western cultures’ we need to revisit ‘these medieval (I use the term loosely) periods in our western history, or do we start from where…

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Conserve or Restore? A Question of Ancestor Kisses

By Mary Lowell | July 7, 2017 |

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…

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Symeon van Donkelaar: Local Color in Icons

By Symeon van Donkelaar | June 14, 2017 |

(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…

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Who Do You Say I Am? The Triumph of Orthodoxy

By Mary Lowell | March 6, 2017 |

Holy icons act as signs that point to the immediacy of the depicted. The icons present to the beholder a way of being in relation with the signified. It is precisely this intimacy which many find troubling. The on-off Iconoclastic Controversy in New Rome on the Bosporus that spanned nearly a century (AD 726–87 and…

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The New Romanian Masters: Innovative Iconography in the Matrix of Tradition

By Jonathan Pageau | March 18, 2015 |

(Editor’s note.  For some time now we’ve wanted to find a way to present the burgeoning iconography which is currently happening in Romania. And so after a bit of searching, this article introducing the new school of iconography was written especially for OAJ by Mother Atanasia (Văetişi) of the Stavropoleos Monastery in Bucharest in collaboration with my own parish priest Fr.…

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An Interview with Iconographer Federico José Xamist

By Andrew Gould | February 17, 2015 |

Federico José Xamist is a remarkably talented young iconographer of whom we have recently become aware. His work exemplifies icon painting as a fresh and living tradition. We offer the following interview to introduce this exciting artist to our readers: Gould: Federico, you grew up in Chile. How did you come to live in Greece? J. Xamist: When I…

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