Fr. Maximos Constas, The Art of Seeing: Paradox and Perception in Orthodox Iconography. Alhambra, California: Sebastian Press, 2014. Pp. 263 + 73 color illustrations. Many readers of the Orthodox Arts Journal have some familiarity with the concept of symbol. Reader’s of Fr. Silouan Justiniano’s articles, for example, will know that contributors to the journal wrestle […]
In February of this year I was invited by King’s University College to give a talk in their Veritas Series on faith and culture. The theme of this year’s series was “Speaking about God” exploring the different ways we express and address the Divine. I developed my talk in the context of the many discussions […]
This is post 1 of 2 in the series “Archetype and Symbol” A year ago a friend visited our monastery for a few days. At the time we had a conversation about sacred art and the process of expressing archetypal realities in iconography. Recently he wrote to me asking, “Have you come across anything… that […]
There is no ass or ox in the Biblical narratives of the birth of Christ. Yet, besides the Christ Child himself, the ass and the ox are the most ancient and stable elements in the iconography of the nativity. In fact the earliest example of a nativity known to us contains only the swaddled Christ in the manger flanked by the ox […]