Most people, when they look at Orthodox icons painted in the Byzantine style, do not understand their messages and feel somewhat disconnected from them. They have not learned, one might say, to “read” them, since in order to read an icon, one must know a special language, the iconographic language. It is a “linguistic code” that is unique, and to decode it, you need to learn its symbols, its secret keys. To read the visual language of the icon, you must know what the colors and shapes mean, what the distortions and aesthetic exaggerations signify, its “irrational” perspective, and its centripetal lighting. In other words, you must learn to read its paradoxical language, which is a theological language and closely related to the Holy Scriptures. Because iconography is theology, since to iconograph means to theologize through various colors the ineffable mysteries of the divine Economy.
Pages: 208, Language: Greek
Dimensions: 17X27 cm
Soft cover
Editions: Etoimasia Holy Monastery of Timios Prodromos of Karea
