The Seventh Ecumenical Council, the Council of Frankfurt & the Practice of Painting

Editorial Preface: This article was written by Dr. Peter Brooke, an Orthodox Christian painter and writer living in Brecon, Wales. He is the author of “Albert Gleizes: For and Against the Twentieth Century,” a major biography of one of the most important pioneers of Cubism. Dr. Brooke studied painting in France with the distinguished potter…

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Notes on Method

St. Mamas of Caesarea by Fr. Silouan Justiniano. Egg tempera on wood, 46 in. x 31 in.    One has to know technique, but one also needs to know art. An icon should be like a ‘painting’, like a prayer written with beautiful letters…There are many craftsmen, but few real iconographers. Make an icon, a…

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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 III

This is post 3 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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