xenia ix

Did you ever think of yourself as an iconographer before this? As an artist you probably always admired the works of Theophan the Greek, or Andrei Rublev?

Before I was even baptized...

in probably 1991, I was at an exhibition from the Russian Museum: Kandinsky, Malevich, Goncharev, Chagall, Philonov… But these paintings were not what amazed me - although at the time, I also loved all of that - but rather the Russian icons from the collection of Nikodim Kondakov, a famous art historian. 

This was a feast! 

An untold feeling of paradise and wonder!

And I walked around for a long time as if dumbstruck! 

I returned to this exhibition ten times just for these icons. Because Chagall, as it turns out, is not interesting even the third or fourth time around. I was astounded by the mastery with which these icons were painted! I saw paradise on them. 

And this was a discovery for me, because during Soviet times it was customary to look at Russian icons condescendingly [minzaam]. Now Italian Renaissance, that’s something, but an icon! Of course it’s nice, but… 

This admiration of icons lived in me all the years following. 

And became something like a key... 

that would one day open the door into the world of Orthodoxy. 

This is what probably determined my present festive style.



~bron~