Theory
American Aristocrats: Art, Patronage, and Beauty with Andrew Gould and Dr. Timothy Patitsas
This video features a discussion I had with Dr. Timothy Patitsas. We discuss liturgical arts, patronage, culture, and the experience of the artist. We delve deep into the practical difficulties of realizing good art in the modern age. If you enjoyed this article, please use the PayPal button below to donate to support the work…
Continue reading »Teaching Iconography in the Twenty-First Century
Sharing our teaching method, I invite fellow iconographers to share their views on teaching, as only by approaching this subject from several sides can we foster a new generation of iconographers who will be better than us. The teaching method my wife Olga Shalamova and I now use took its shape gradually. In Italy in…
Continue reading »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 »Questions for Iconographers
Writing this text, I can’t help but feel that it opens up (or continues) a very extensive subject, which will require a lot of effort just to be introduced, and even more effort to be explained, but I will try… On February 12th, 2024 I was invited to the Andrey Rublev Museum in Moscow as…
Continue reading »Iconography: Towards Future Seminary Curriculum Development
Editorial Note: The following paper was presented at the academic theological conference, The Orthodox Christian Seminary in the 21st Century, held Saturday, September 16, during the 75th Anniversary of Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary, which took place at Jordanville, NY, September 15-17, 2023.[i] **** Trinity!! Higher than any being, any divinity, any goodness! Guide of…
Continue reading »The Chichester Workshop for Liturgical Art: A New Venture for Training Liturgical Artists and Inspiring Wise Commissioning
An exciting centre for training liturgical artists and inspiring commissioners was officially launched on the September 14th, 2023. It is called the Chichester Cathedral Workshop for Liturgical Art. It is based at the ancient cathedral in the south of England,which stems from a monastery founded by St Wilfrid in 681. You can learn more about…
Continue reading »Announcing an Exciting Book Project Featuring the Liturgical Arts of North America
I’m very pleased to announce that I’ve partnered with the Sacred Arts Institute at Saint Vladimir’s Seminary to produce a major book featuring the best of North America’s Orthodox Liturgical Arts. This will be a high-quality art book focused on presenting excellent color images. We will feature historic and contemporary churches, icons, furnishings, metalwork, textiles,…
Continue reading »Icon, Religion—Abstraction: Joseph Masheck with Joachim Pissarro & Fr. Silouan Justiniano
…I looked at Russian icon painting with new eyes, that is to say, I “acquired eyes” for the abstract element in this kind of painting. –Wassily Kandinsky[i] For better or for worse the traditional icon painting revival is indebted to modernism, in particular its development of abstraction. Although, as a traditional liturgical art,…
Continue reading »The Epitaphios of Jesus Christ: The Role of an Artist’s Creativity in Christian Art
Foreword In 2021 I attended a conference on “The Art of Embroidery in the Orthodox Church,” at which a speaker presented a thesis that church art is unchangeable, because it is based on church doctrine and therefore the only choice an iconographer or embroiderer is given is to choose between styles. This idea hit a…
Continue reading »On Manners and Mannerisms: Thoughts on Style…Part II
Participation Vs. Mannerism As mentioned earlier, I take stylization as a neutral, unavoidable trait of painting at large and in fact of all made things. Any embodied articulation of meaning possesses a style. Style is a visual rhetoric of sorts. But not all rhetoric has the same power. The goal should be to “…move, in…
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