Din scrierile dreptmaritorilor. PHOTIOS KONTOGLOU (1896 - 1965), Greek Orthodox iconographer and author.
Kyrill
Photios Kontoglou
PHOTIOS KONTOGLOU (1896 - 1965), a Greek 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!
Original article in Greek is © “Astir,” Athens,
Greece, and found in Volume 3 of the WORKS of Photios Kontoglou.