Architektura i ikona – układ scalony od nowa

• Authors: Jerzy Uścinowicz

Title variants

EN

Architecture and Icon – a Circuit Integrated from Scratch

Abstracts

EN

Over the last hundred years, the icon has traveled a lot around the world. Such journey of the icon in so many directions would not be possible without its rediscovery in the East. Signs of its return as a cult object and art phenomenon can be seen as early on the brink of the 19th and 20th centuries, when an icon ceased to be – as it was in the past named – a “black board”. It could be seen now, owing to the work of conservators, freed from the layers covering it throughout the years. There was no “curtain” covering it any more. There was no black. We could yet again “contemplate it in colors”. Because of the “rediscovery” of the icon and its consecutive journey through its native Eastern Orthodox world, both the Christian East and West became artistically prepared to receive it. Theological preparations were in motion as well, mainly due to – written mostly in Western Europe – fundamental philosophical and theological treaties and pioneering realizations of sacred art, icons and architecture. They unveiled the “secret life” of the icon, not only as a unique and sublime art form, element of culture and the history of Church, but also a phenomenal philosophical and theological beacon. The icon has proven its “ability to speak”. Just as text in its semiotic transmitting principle, so did the icon, through real symbols of the supernatural reality of the world of God, hand us a testament of this world and the struggle for Salvation anew. This testament has proven itself to be predominant over the many other ways of expressing spiritual aspirations of man. Soon everyone found it out. It was not only through the newly discovered colors, although they might have been responsible for this unveiling. Inverted pers pective, geometric abstraction, symbolic message, sign character, multitude of layers and space-time perception – these are just some of its unique ways of articulating the message. Today, from a certain historical distance, it can be unequivocally stated that the life of the then underground icon and the treatises written about it should be clearly associated with France, and especially with Paris and its Orthodox Theological Institute of St. Sergius of Radonezh. Just as discoveries made by conservators allowed us to see the icon free from layers and repaintings covering the Archetype, so did the rediscovery of the icon, not only for the orthodox world, but also the Christian and the whole oikumene, begin on polish grounds by Jerzy Nowosielski. Nowosielski has finished his icons. He does not write them anymore. He left hundreds or maybe even thousands of them. He left behind his artwork, ingenious in their iconographical-theological and architectural value, in Orthodox churches as well as in Roman Catholic and Uniate churches. He left behind also hundreds of sketches and designs as well as unfinished sacred projects. With their great potential, they are the live tradition of polish sacral art. This tradition and the heritage of the precursors of the contemporary iconography is in some manner continued by the orthodox school of icon writing – Iconographical Study at Archangel Michael’s parish in Bielsk Podlaski and its teachers and student-graduates. The icon through ages of its history on earth has journeyed a long way, both through time and through space. It still does. At present, it can be observed not only in Christian West, where it is welcomed “anew” as a form of sacral communication and partly as a cult symbol and theological phenomenon. It can be observed also, though in a slightly different form, in the Christian East, where the icon experienced and still experiences certain issues. For not more than a hundred years ago, the idea of the icon was faint at most. A true dispute over the icon lasts up to this day within the Orthodox Church, between the supporters of its classical and pseudo realistic form, the true icon and its centenarian naturalistic, occidental image. A dispute so important, for the icon is one of the visible signs of the Orthodox Church’s existence. It is an object of cult. It is a testimony of Incarnation and the mystery play of presence. It does not contain. It “guides” us on the path to the heavenly Archetype. It is the path to deification and salvation.

Keywords

PL

ikona; architektura; podziemie; emigracja; prawosławie; Prawosławny Instytut Teologiczny Św. Sergiusza z Radoneża; Studium; Ikonograficzne w Bielsku Podlaskim

• Publisher: Akademia Supraska
• Journal: Latopisy Akademii Supraskiej
• Year: 2021
• Volume: Obraz - Słowo - Litera
• Issue: 12
• Pages: 79-100

Dates

published

2021

Contributors

author

Jerzy Uścinowicz

Identifiers

Biblioteka Nauki

2170012