Nice Article on Photios Kontoglou, my idea of a modern day saint
Villager
Orthodox iconographer and author, was
born in
Aivali, Asia Minor. After traveling
around the
world he eventually returned to his
homeland,
but was forced to leave after the Asia
Minor
catastrophe in 1922 and moved to Athens,
Greece.
His writings and icon painting
distinguished
him as a soldier for Christ and struggler
for the
spirit of Orthodox Romeosini. His
writings
reveal the Christian-Roman/Byzantine
Orthodox spirit of the neo-Hellene. His
dedication to the traditional Orthodox
Byzantine Iconographic Art form, at a
time
when even iconographers on Mount Athos
were
using Western prototypes, was
instrumental to
the reawakening of Orthodox liturgical
art
forms that was to occur, which we now
enjoy.
His article, The Mystic Zion, reveals
how the
psaltic liturgical art form of the Church
partakes of the same spirit. The purpose
of the
liturgical chant is one and the same with
iconography, to be apocalyptic; to reveal
God s
presence and to bring us into His
presence.
The Mystic Zion
by Photios Kontoglou
Byzantine art (techni) is for me the art
of arts. I
believe in it as I do religion. I do not
deny this,
but it even gives me great pleasure when,
most
of the time, someone uses it as an
accusation.
Only this art nurtures my soul with its
deep and
mysterious powers, it quenches the thirst
which I feel in the dry desert which
surrounds
us. Next to Byzantine Art, all other art
seems to
me light, distracted by many things,
while
only one thing is needful. That one
thing,
when it is perceived by someone, it is
understood.
Many times I question myself how man was
made worthy by divine grace to reach the
unteachable, to express the
inexpressible, and
to express it with means so practical and
simple: neither vain wisdom, neither
foresight,
neither false transcendence with soft
delicateness, neither sentimentalism,
theatrical
and meaningless. Everything is serious,
contemplative enough, mystical worlds
revealed under phenomenal worthlessness
and
simpleness. A trigger descends to the
depths
of the oceans of the soul and, at the
moment
when most think it cannot descend another
fathom, it reaches a world no one can
measure.
Let no profane hand touch (Canon of the
Feast of the Annunciation; Ninth Ode,
First
Troparion.) Whoever does not understand
that
mysterious language setting aside all
worldly
cares, will not understand even till the
end of
his life. The root of his soul will
remain dry of
the dew of heaven.
The sweetness of this art is apocalyptic.
Men
who have need of triviality, cannot find
anything other than would be rational
comments, about crooked feet, unnatural
bodies and the such, but how can its deep
human content, which is the holy of
holies, be
weighed with such means? And when they
praise it, then they say the worst,
idiotic
comments, generalities.
For man to commune with that which is a
fire
and burns the unworthy, no one benefits
from
those bulky tools which are called:
smartness,
education, rhetoric, diplomacy, analysis,
etc.,
but something more honorable is needed,
something which is usually found in the
simplest man and is some magical
characteristic, that reveals to man the
depth of
the divine harmony of the whole. What do
I
look upon? None other but the gentle, the
humble, and the quiet! Souls which are
deep
and closed have the hidden privilege to
be
initiated into this revelation.
So, he who has this grace, only he
understands
the mystic and unearthly tongue which the
East
speaks, Byzantium. In the works of this
mystic
Zion he finds the fount and quenches his
thirst, whosoever burns from the thirst
for the
original.
When he enters into a Byzantine chapel,
he
expects to find something apocalyptic in
its
paintings, something original, something
which
presents mystical things, while he can
pass by a
great European gallery, without
satisfying this
type of desire. It is, however, in the
first
drawer who drew without
prototype according to the image where
the
true prototype is found, where the
combination
of colors and forms are not new, within a
perception appointed from before nature,
but
it is the presentation of worlds and
feelings by
totally spiritual means, with the
indefinite
pulse of the hand, a bowing of the head,
clothing where the threads disappear in
an air
which blows beyond the earth, a color
which
reminds of the depth of the sea, an
exotic rock,
a wild tree which brings you the mystical
composition of the world. The colors and
the
forms retain their evocative power
because
they are not recreated by the artist to
represent something natural, but they are
utilized in such a way that their
identity and
their apocalyptic power becomes more
intense.
Whoever feels this will be left
passionless to
the external charms and pointless
perfections.
The works of Byzantine art are the most
apocalyptic man had done,
architecturally,
poetically, musically and artistically:
the O
Gladsome Light, poem of Athenogenous the
martyr, the rolling melody of the
Cherubic or
Communion Hymns, immerse the soul into
the
mystical half-light of the East. This
mysticism
has no relation to the infirm mysticism
of the
North, but is full of health, happiness
and
richness, even as it is ascetic and
austere.
One rich example of apocalyptic
drawing is the icon of Saint John the
Forerunner. This scene was created
during the years of Turkish occupation
(Turkocratia), that is, a period
condemned by art history.
Nevertheless, it is the most
astonishing accomplishment! Saint
John is shown as a wild bird, a bird of
prey,
bony, with hands and feet of sticks,
sun-baked,
with some great wings of a vulture. He
stands
perched in a deserted place, on soot and
dry
rocks, in one hand he holds the mystical
hand
blessing, and in the other he holds a
paper on
which he writes his complaint, as if
telling it to
Christ who bends down from heaven. In one
corner, planted on a dry rock , is a wild
tree
which is troubled, tortured, like the
Forerunner, an oak tree with a hatchet
stuck
into its trunk. His clothing is as green
oil, a
symbolic color made to match the face
that
wears it.
How many times, I ask, was man made
worthy
to create such sights, such fearful works
as the
Forerunner and the O Gladsome Light,
poem
of Athenogenous the martyr!
Greece, and found in Volume 3 of the WORKS of Photios Kontoglou.
from the webpage (beautiful) of:
Fr. Constantine J. Terss
28/11/97 Athens, Greece
http://users.forthnet.gr/ath/frc/kontoglou.html