What is an Icon – A Response for Philip Davydov

Editor’s Note: This open letter was written in response to Philip Davydov’s call for master iconographers to address some fundamental questions about their art and its relationship to the Church.  Dear Philip, thank you for the interesting article. It seems to me that the questions you have presented to us are not that difficult to…

Continue reading »

The Living Icon

Editor’s Note: This essay was originally written in Russian by master iconographer Anton Daineko of Minsk, Belarus. It beautifully explores the paradox of creativity within iconography from the very personal perspective of a lifelong practitioner. Anton and Ekaterina Daineko regularly teach icon-painting workshops in the USA, which are highly recommended. They have upcoming workshops in…

Continue reading »

The Nature of Divine Beauty

A Tough Love Many are drawn to the beauty of icons. But clearly this beauty is of a different order than, say, that of a Greek statue, or of a Renaissance painting. Icons are liturgical objects, created for prayer, a means of communion with the Lord. So what are some of the characteristics of divine…

Continue reading »

The Drawings of Elena Murariu

  There’s theory and then there’s practice. The one flows from the other and back again, unceasingly. Their interdependence is indissoluble. Likewise, there’s “inner” drawing and then there’s “external” drawing. The first unfolds and takes shape in the imagination; the latter is the former’s manifestation. A masterful drawing seems to be as if a concrete…

Continue reading »