Theory
Book Review — Beauty-Spirit-Matter: Icons in the Modern World, by Aidan Hart
For the past 12 years or so, when perusing Aidan Hart’s essays and lectures, I often wondered if they would ever be published in book form. So it was a pleasant surprise to encounter some of them collected in Hart’s most recent book, Beauty-Spirit-Matter: Icons in the Modern World. It’s a long overdue book, bringing…
Continue reading »Lives of the Saints: Part Two
This is post 2 of 3 in the series “Lives of the Saints” Nicholas Kotar thinks through how the often fantastical stories in the life of the saints can still be relevant and teach us about how the world exists even today in our materialist culture. The Lives of the Saints Lives of the Saints:…
Continue reading »On the Gift of Art…Part III: Clashing Worldviews
This is post 3 of 5 in the series “On the Gift of Art… But, What Art” Fr. Silouan explores points of contact and departure between traditional visions of art and contemporary art as we know it today. On the Gift of Art… But, What Art? On the Gift of Art…Part II: The Traditional Doctrine…
Continue reading »The Art of Icon Painting in a Postmodern World: Interview with George Kordis
The Athens based iconographer George Kordis may perhaps be considered as one of the most important representatives of the revival of the icon. His approach to the icon is one that does not see working within Tradition as merely the repetition of old models, but rather as the application of immutable principles in solving contemporary…
Continue reading »On the Gift of Art…Part II: The Traditional Doctrine of Art
This is post 2 of 5 in the series “On the Gift of Art… But, What Art” Fr. Silouan explores points of contact and departure between traditional visions of art and contemporary art as we know it today. On the Gift of Art… But, What Art? On the Gift of Art…Part II: The Traditional Doctrine…
Continue reading »Jonah – Resurrecting The Body and Saving The City
The icon of the Holy Prophet Jonah is one of the the most ancient images of Christianity. Like the story of this prophet, his image is a powerful symbol of death and resurrection. I want to look closely at the story of Jonah and its iconography because it brings together almost all the elements I…
Continue reading »On the Gift of Art… But, What Art?
This is post 1 of 5 in the series “On the Gift of Art… But, What Art” Fr. Silouan explores points of contact and departure between traditional visions of art and contemporary art as we know it today. On the Gift of Art… But, What Art? On the Gift of Art…Part II: The Traditional Doctrine…
Continue reading »Aesthetic Nepsis, Enargeia and Theophany: Looking for the Christian Image
This article was written by Dr. Cornelia Tsakiridou, associate professor at LaSalle University and author of Icons in Time, Persons in Eternity. The content is based on the talk Dr. Tsakiridou gave at Princeton University on March 13th, 2014 which was sponsored by Princeton’s Orthodox Christian Fellowship and Florovsky Society. Introduction (1) Saint Porphyrios the Kausokalyvite used to…
Continue reading »Steatite Icons and Material Symbolism
One of the points many OAJ contributors have been trying to bring across is that the medium out of which sacred art is made and the artful human act of fabrication are important on a symbolic and theological level. This question of materiality and production have become crucial ones in our age of mechanical reproduction…
Continue reading »What is missing from Aronofsky’s Noah
In many of my past articles I have explored the symbolism of death and how it is related in the Bible and by our Tradition to the arts and technology, to hybridity and the foreigner, the serpent, to the cave, to Cain, to animality and to periphery in general. Aranofsky’s recent Noah movie deals intently with many…
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