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,…

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As if Through a Child’s Inner Eye: The Contemporary Icons of Maxim Sheshukov

The distinctively fresh and masterful work of Maxim Sheshukov, a contemporary iconographer working in Sviyazhsk (Kazan region of Russia), is another example of the best synthesis of creative interpretation and conformity to Tradition which we can find nowadays. His work was mentioned in passing in a previous article on Contemporary Iconographers of Russia, but I thought it…

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The Pictorial Metaphysics of the Icon: Part II

This is post 2 of 3 in the series “The Pictorial Metaphysics of the Icon” Fr. Silouan Justiniano examines the controversial question of style in icons and whether or not composition and stylistic tropes are meaningful in the theology, making and use of the icon. The Pictorial Metaphysics of the Icon : Abstraction vs. Naturalism…

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