Iconographies: Freedom and Form

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

Fr. Pavel Florensky’s understanding of the icon as sensual witness to the sacred focuses on its adherence to prescribed patterns, materials, and forms. In other words, the spiritual is accessed through conformity within the canon. Freedom from these forms, Florensky argues in his observation on post-Renaissance religious art in his 1922 Iconostasis, becomes an expression of “esthetic delusion.” Since then, our understanding of iconography has expanded significantly, allowing us to recognize icons of various styles and materials, including forms of visual art and literary texts. The purpose of this panel is to explore in the broadest sense possible the relationship between freedom and form in iconographies. Papers explore how various forms of iconography relate to their materials and form in terms of freedom, transcendence, or adherence to patterns. Ultimately, the panel seeks to discuss the ontological purpose of iconographies that may tolerate or even rely on the tension between incorporating or transcending traditional technique, materials, and form.

Sub Unit

• Religion, Philosophy

Chair

• Peter G Winsky, U of Southern California

Papers

• Printed Icons in the Early Slavic World - Justin Willson, Icon Museum and Study Center

• Sociology, Morality, Theophany: Materials and Meaning in Dostoevsky’s 'The Boy at Christ’s Christmas Tree' - Amy Singleton Adams, College of the Holy Cross

Discussant

• Michael Ossorgin, Fordham U