Posts Tagged ‘modernism’
A Double Standard? Some Clarifications on Icon Painting Theory
Therefore every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old. ‒Matt. 13:52 It is the irrational impulses that yearn for innovation. …
Continue reading »A Matter of “Ethos”: An Interview with the Painter Markos Kampanis
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…
Continue reading »On the Gift of Art…Part V: The Threshold
This is post 5 of 5 in the series “On the Gift of Art… But, What Art” Fr. Silouan explores points of contact and departure between traditional visions of art and contemporary art as we know it today. On the Gift of Art… But, What Art? On the Gift of Art…Part II: The Traditional Doctrine…
Continue reading »The Icon Painting Tradition and Modern Art: Hermeneutical Considerations
To articulate what is past does not mean to recognize ‘how it really was’. It means to take control of a memory, as it flashes in a moment of danger. Walter Benjamin In 1557, the Corpus Historiae Byzantinae, a series initiated by the German monk and humanist Hieronymus Wolf[1], was published. Ever since, the region…
Continue reading »Hope and Fragility: An Interview With Neo Coptic Iconographer Stéphane René
The Coptic tradition of iconography is one of which we know very little about in the West. So many of the ancient monuments were destroyed or came to disrepair as Copts in Egypt were subject to Islamic rule in the 7th century. It is only recently that the old monuments are being rediscovered, cleaned and restored properly.…
Continue reading »Contemporary Art as Theophany
To-day in England we think as little of art as though we had been caught up from earth and set in some windy side street of the universe among the stars. Disgust at the daily deathbed which is Europe has made us hunger and thirst for the kindly ways of righteousness, and we want to save our souls.…
Continue reading »On the Relative Autonomy of the Icon: Converging Aesthetics in Early Modernism
It is well to remember that a picture- before being a battle horse, a nude woman, or some anecdote- is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order. – Maurice Denis, ‘Definition du Neo-traditionisme’, Art et Critique, 1890. In the icon …Colors are colors; red is red. Colors do not imitate…
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