Iconography
Today and Tomorrow: Principles in the Training of Future Iconographers pt.1
This is post 1 of 2 in the series “Today and Tomorrow: Principles in the Training of Future Iconographers” Aidan Hart looks at principles of style, composition and fabrication in icons, how these are meaningful in our consideration of iconography and how such considerations should be transmitted to the next generation of artists. Today and…
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 »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 »A New Icon of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Zosimas: Notes on Form & Symbolism
A New Icon of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Zosimas Notes on Form & Symbolism By Fr. Silouan Justiniano In thee, O Mother, was exactly preserved what was according to the divine image. For thou didst take the cross and follow Christ, and by thy life, didst teach us to ignore the flesh,…
Continue reading »The Robot, the Mutant and The Artist
[1]One of the weaknesses in our vision of the world is that we tend to look at what surrounds us from one side of an opposition. This is inevitable as humanity’s existence unfolds like a wheel, waxing and waning, pulled by opposite forces from extreme to extreme. These extremes feed each other, call each other…
Continue reading »Interview with Serbian Iconographer Todor Mitrovic: On the Dialogue Between the Sacred and Secular Arts
This article was revised and proofread by Jennifer Leslie. Todor Mitrovic was born in Belgrade, Serbia in 1972. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts (FLU) University of Arts, Belgrade in 1997. He was awarded a Master of Arts Degree in 2006 and Doctor of Arts in 2015. The title of his PhD art…
Continue reading »Fr. Philippe Péneaud: Romanesque Iconography Today
Fr. Philippe Péneaud is a priest for the Antiochian Orthodox Church and a prolific woodcarver living in the South of France. Having studied in the great tradition of European woodcarving with Raymond Labeyrie, he converted to Orthodoxy in the 1980s under the influence of Leonid Ouspensky’s “Theology of The Icon” as well as through the works of others…
Continue reading »The Rich Classicism of Fr. Ilie Bobaianu
Last year we posted an article about young Romanian iconographers creating traditional icons looking partially to modern art for elements to include in their work. With the spiritual renewal of Romania, there are also some wonderful iconographers exploring the rich strain of classicism in Byzantine icons. Fr. Ilie Bobaianu (Dantes) is a monk and iconographer who’s work shines particularly…
Continue reading »A Miracle of Liturgical Art: The Church of the Protection of the Mother of God at Yasenevo
This past fall I had the opportunity to visit a construction project that is nothing short of a miracle. I saw a group of mostly volunteers and amateurs, working with small donations, building a church to rival any monument in the history of Christendom. The project was recently completed, consecrated by His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill,…
Continue reading »A Carved and Inlaid Cross, a Collaborative Work
I have recently completed a small but highly interesting project, two years in the making, and involving several master artisans. It is a wooden cross with carved stone icons, crafted like a jewel, wholly traditional, and yet quite unlike anything seen before. This is one of those projects that grew, perhaps providentially, from an initially…
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