technique Archives – Orthodox Arts Journal

Humility

By Philip Davydov | March 3, 2025 |

Icon by Juliania Sokolova VS an icon painted by a student of a school she founded at Moscow Spiritual Academy

If only we could speak to ourselves from the future! How many valuable insights and skills could we have shared with our past selves! On the other hand, how would we have learned these things if not through the mistakes we make today? Is there a way to learn without mistakes? We have books, videos,…

‘The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting’: A Chinese painting manual offers inspiration to iconographers

By Aidan Hart | July 2, 2019 |

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…

Notes on Method

By Fr. Silouan Justiniano | June 30, 2017 |

St. Mamas of Caesarea by Fr. Silouan Justiniano. Egg tempera on wood, 46 in. x 31 in. One has to know technique, but one also needs to know art. An icon should be like a ‘painting’, like a prayer written with beautiful letters…There are many craftsmen, but few real iconographers. Make an icon, a…