Update and an Observation
from Gary Bradley
A few days ago, I was reading in the holy book about the redemptive power of excellence. I observed that the word ‘excellence’ occurs five times in the New Testament and that each time the idea is connected to “Character” or “Virtue.”
I find this important because I see that art makers are at their best when character, competence, and a Kingdom vision are connected. Perhaps the restorative power of excellence is tied up in our character, what do you think?
A friend of mine, Keith Meyer, responded to this question with this statement:
“Eastern Orthodox Icon Writers…must have accomplished apprenticeship both in the writing of Icons and in the spirituality that the Icon represents…in other words…their works of excellence must have involved character to write (…they considered the bible to be just another form of art, or an icon, in words and letters).
This summer we will have a good time exploring this idea along with the delight of entering into the art of our friends.
We hope you can join us!
Gary Bradley
June 7th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
“Icon writers” and “icon writing” is a translational misnomer. I remember having this conversation with Archimandrite Christodoulos Papadeus, Greek Orthodox monastic of Denver, who said this shows an obvious American ignorance and misunderstanding of the Greek language and culture. Many Americans who convert to Orthodox Christianity have adopted this misnomer, particularly in the Russian Orthodox tradition. They get the phrase “writing icons” from the Greek word “iconography” which literally translates as “image writing,” only because the Greeks did not use the verb “to paint” for painting pictures. In the Greek, to paint means to paint a house or some other object, but the use of “graphe” (literally, writing), when applied to iconography should be translated in contemporary English as “icon painting.” There is no spiritual, mystical, superapostolic meaning for “icon writing” because it should not even be translated as such. One paints icons in a spiritual and mystical way, and painting an image of a saint should be as a spiritual experience. It is not as if using the word “icon writing” has some profound, deeper, spiritual meaning; it does not. Let’s beware of a gnostic attitude toward spirituality. To a Greek who speaks English, it has no meaning. And as an Orthodox Christian in the American West, I say we should embrace the word “painting” as just as spiritual an action as prayer. —Andrew Kercher, http://anglicanorthodoxy.blogspot.com