They have not from timidity remained forever under the roof of their master, a safe but sad course. But in the fullness of time they leave home and develop their own voice. Such people immerse themselves in the existing body of medieval icons as a student before their master. To be a great iconographer requires not piety alone, nor skill alone, but the two wedded.
They breathe the holy light and air of the Liturgy, inner prayer, the Holy Spirit of God Himself, and unite this life to great artistic gift. They feed directly from the sources, seeking the spirit rather than the form of medieval icons.
PAKKOV ICONOGRAPHER WINDOWS
And, understandably, it is the same masterpieces that are endlessly reproduced, which has the unfortunate effect of debasing the very works we love so much.īut then such people as Father Zenon arrive, who open wide the doors and windows of this stale room and show us what an authentic tradition is. While most contemporary iconographers reject the sentimentalism and naturalism of nineteenth century work, and copy Byzantine or medieval Russian icons as an antidote, most of us are essentially still copyists, and all too often bad copyists. This is an understandable reaction to the many centuries’ debasement of the tradition, but it is a reaction and not a healthy state in which to remain. He unearths the secrets of masterworks, makes them his own, and then he paints without apparent labour.Ī spirit of tentativeness, if not fear, still dominates the icon revival of the past century. He is constantly learning from different icon traditions, Western as well as Eastern, exposing himself to new influences – first the Moscow school of Andrei Rubliof, then earlier Byzantine work, then Romanesque, Armenian, and more recently, from works of Ravenna and early Rome.
PAKKOV ICONOGRAPHER FREE
Archimandrite Zenon in 2008 at St Nicholas Cathedral, Vienna.Įvery once in a while an iconographer appears who is free yet traditional, a wind of freshness, a new plant in a forest of conformity.
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