Monday, 18 November 2013
Preparations for the Centenary of St. Teresa of Avila
The following information was issued this week on the Carmelite news service Citoc regarding preparations for the Centenary of St. Teresa of Avila in 2015
We have been informed in the Curia of a number of significant events taking place throughout the Carmelite world in preparation for the 500th anniversary of the birth of Saint Teresa of Jesus. Our General Curia, through its International Formation Commission, will hold an on-going formation course in Spain from the 7th - 17th of September 2014. Details of this course will be sent to the provincials, commissaries and delegates in the near future.
In the English speaking countries, the Carmelite Forum of Britain and Ireland (O.Carm./O.C.D. friars and nuns) are holding a series of important events, including conferences in London and Dublin. The former Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Rowan Williams, is among the speakers taking part. A joint letter of the provincials and presidents of the two nuns associations can be read at www.teresaofavila.org. The Carmelite Institute in the United States has already begun a programme that will lead up to the 500th anniversary, entitled “Walking in her shoes for a day”. The will also hold a symposium on St. Teresa in Chicago in June 2015.
The Neapolitan Province held a congress in Bari on the 12th of October, 2013, with the title "Il Cielo è dentro di te" (Heaven is within you): Five lay people gave a presentation of the “Way of Perfection”, from the stand-point of lay people. The previous year, in the month of October, as always, a congress was held on "L'attualità pastorale del Libro della Vita di S. Teresa" (the pastoral relevance of the Autobiography of St. Teresa) with talks by Aniano Alvarez Suarez, O.C.D., in Bari, and Luigi Borriello, O.C.D. in Foggia.
In Portugal, a committee was set up for the Centenary. This committee includes the O.C.D. Province of Portugal, and O.Carm. General Commissariat of Portugal, and other Carmelite Congregations. The first event to be organised was a congress held in Fatima from the 17th to the 19th of October, last, on the Carmelite-Teresian school of prayer. A very good number of people from various Portuguese speaking countries attended.
Similarly, with a view to the Centenary, the publishers of the collection, Textos para un Milenio (Texts for a Millennium) published the work of Tomás de Jesus (d. 1582), the “Suma y compendio de los grados de oración” ( Summa and Compendium of the Stages of Prayer), one of the first attempts to systematise the thought of St. Teresa, as well as the "Sermones en honor de Santa Teresa de Jesús” (Sermons in honour of St. Teresa of Jesus) by the Carmelite Cristóbal de Avendaño (d. 1629). In addition, Edizioni Carmelitane in Rome, published the second edition, with many additions, of “Santa Teresa, San Juan de la Cruz y los Carmelitas Españoles” (St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross and the Spanish Carmelites) by Pablo Garrido, O.Carm.
Actividades de preparación del Centenario de Santa Teresa
De acuerdo a la información recibida en nuestra Curia, podemos destacar ya algunos eventos que se están organizando en todo el mundo con vistas al V Centenario del nacimiento de Santa Teresa de Jesús. La Curia General, a través de la Comisión Internacional de Formación, está preparando un curso de formación permanente que tendrá lugar en España del 7 al 17 de septiembre de 2014. Una información detallada se enviará próximamente a los provinciales.
En los países de habla inglesa, el Carmelite Forum of Britain and Ireland (formado por frailes y monjas O.Carm. y OCD) está desarrollando una serie de conferencias en Londres y en Dublín. Entre los ponentes, hay que destacar al que fue Arzobispo Anglicano de Canterbury, Lord Rowan Williams. Asimismo, los provinciales y las presidentes de las dos federaciones de monjas han escrito una carta al respecto que se puede leer en: www.teresaofavila.org. El Instituto Carmelita de los Estados Unidos ha comenzado ya un programa de preparación para el V Centenario titulado “Walk in her shoes for a day” (Caminando un día con sus sandalias). Igualmente, se está preparando un Simposio sobre la Santa que tendrá lugar en Chicago en junio de 2015.
El pasado el 12 de octubre, la Provincia Napolitana ha celebrado un congreso en Bari, bajo el título "El Cielo está dentro de ti” en el que cinco seglares han presentado el “Camino de Perfección” desde una perspectiva laical. En octubre de 2012 ya se había celebrado otro congreso sobre "La actualidad pastoral del Libro de la Vida de Santa Teresa" con conferencias de Aniano Alvarez Suarez, OCD., en Bari y de Luigi Borriello, OCD, en Foggia.
En Portugal se ha creado un comité integrado por la Provincia de Portugal OCD, en colaboración con el Comisariado General de Portugal O.Carm., y con otras congregaciones carmelitas, para preparar diversos actos con motivo de este importante centenario. El primero de ellos ha sido el congreso celebrado en Fátima los pasados días 17 al 19 de octubre sobre la escuela de oración carmelitana-teresiana, con una nutrida participación de varios países de lengua portuguesa.
En cuanto a publicaciones, la colección TPM (“Textos para un Milenio”) ha publicado la obra de Tomás de Jesús († 1582), “Suma y compendio de los grados de oración” (uno de los primeros intentos de sistematizar el pensamiento de la Santa), así como los "Sermones en honor de Santa Teresa de Jesús” del carmelita Cristóbal de Avendaño († 1629). Asimismo, Edizioni Carmelitane de Roma ha publicado la segunda edición, muy ampliada, de “Santa Teresa, San Juan de la Cruz y los Carmelitas Españoles” de Pablo Garrido, O.Carm.
Attività in preparazione al centenario di Santa Teresa
La Curia è stata informata di varie attività significative che si svolgono in tutto il mondo carmelitano in vista del V centenario della nascita di Santa Teresa di Gesù.
La nostra Curia Generalizia organizzerà attraverso la Commissione Internazionale per la formazione dal 7 al 17 settembre 2014 un corso di formazione permanente in Spagna. Le informazioni in dettaglio saranno inviate in seguito ai provinciali.
Nei paesi di lingua inglese, il Carmelite Forum of Britain and Ireland (composto da frati e monache O.Carm. e OCD), organizzerà una serie di conferenze a Londra e a Dublino. Tra i relatori ci sarà l'ex arcivescovo anglicano di Canterbury, Lord Rowan Williams. Inoltre, si può leggere una lettera scritta dai provinciali e le presidi delle due federazioni di monache su www.teresaofavila.org . L'istituto carmelitano negli Stati Uniti ha già cominciato un programma in preparazione al V Centenario col titolo “Walk in her shoes for a day”. Si sta preparando anche un simposio su S. Teresa per il giugno 2015 a Chicago.
La Provincia Napoletana ha celebrato il 12 ottobre 2013 un convegno a Bari, dal titolo "Il Cielo è dentro di te", nel quale cinque laici hanno presentato il "Cammino di Perfezione" dalla prospettiva laicale. L'anno precedente, sempre nel mese di ottobre, si era svolto un convegno su "L'attualità pastorale del Libro della Vita di S. Teresa" con le relazioni di Aniano Álvarez Suarez, OCD, a Bari, e di Luigi Borriello, OCD, a Foggia.
In Portogallo è stato formato un comitato composto dalla Provincia di Portogallo OCD, il Commissariato Generale di Portogallo O.Carm. e da altre congregazioni carmelitane per collaborare nella preparazione di varie attività per questo Centenario. Il comitato ha già organizzato dal 17 al 19 ottobre a Fatima un congresso sul tema della scuola di preghiera carmelitana teresiana con una viva partecipazione di persone di diversi paesi di lingua portoghese.
In vista del centenario la collana TPM (Textos para un Milenio) ha pubblicato l'opera di Tomás de Jesús (+1582) “Suma y compendio de los grados de oración”, che è uno dei primi tentativi di sistemare il pensiero della santa; ed anche "Sermones en honor de Santa Teresa de Jesús” del carmelitano Cristóbal de Avendaño (+1629). Le Edizioni Carmelitane di Roma hanno pubblicato la seconda edizione, molto ampliata, di “Santa Teresa, San Juan de la Cruz y los Carmelitas Españoles” di Pablo Garrido, O.Carm.
Friday, 15 November 2013
Of Glass and Gold III: Comparisons and Conclusions
James Waller
This is the third part of a paper given by James
Waller at the Carmelite Centre on Tuesday evening, the 12th of
November 2013. James’s paper contrasts his discovery of the Trinity Sergius
Monastery in Russia, a spiritual centre of Orthodoxy, with Metz Cathedral in
France, a remarkable example of Western Catholic spirituality. All images in
this presentation come from the camera of James Waller. A bibliography, with
links, is at the end of this Part.We might say that speculative theology is forged by a deep and ongoing tug-of-war, between reason and logic on the one hand, and faith and devotion on the other. Equally we might say that dogmatic theology places one in the hand of the other. The great Orthodox monastic, Fr. Seraphim Rose once wrote that in order to embrace Russian Orthodoxy he “had to crucify his mind.” In surrendering his not inconsiderable powers of reason to the apophatic way of the Eastern Church, Rose acquired what no amount of thought could: simplicity. This is not to say that he stopped thinking: his surrender, rather, channelled his reasoning powers into the tight rivers of Orthodox dogma, revealing with fresh insight its accepted truths, and refuting, with erudition, all that opposed them.
Put very simply, the great split between the Eastern and Western churches was due to the tug-of-war of speculative theology. The double focus of this war was the icon and the formulation of the Trinity. The Eastern Church rejected reason as a tool of theology and embraced instead the apophatic way, the dark way of silent surrender. In doing so it also embraced the icon as a way of “knowing without knowing”, as a mysterious expression of the invisible. It found abhorrent any attempt to reason out the mystery of the Holy Trinity and paved the way for an icon, such as Rublev’s, to, one day, be forged.
The West, on the other hand, continued with the tug-of-war. In doing so it split itself at the seams; it rejected eastern mysticism and iconography and gave birth to a rational philosophy that would ultimately empty itself of God. But that process also gave birth to the Gothic; to awesome symphonies of stained-glass, to immersive prayers of colour, that have continued to be renewed in languages of contemporary vitality and relevance.
In contrast to the icon, the Trinity, in the Neoplatonic Christian West, was manifested as a mathematical formula, for as Von Simson states,
As the icon is thought to partake of the sacred reality it represents, so, according to Augustinian aesthetics, the musical consonances in visual proportions created by man partake of a sacred concord that transcends them.
This sacred concord, expressed most perfectly in Gothic architecture, stained-glass and the music of Bach, is a force of abstraction that is anathema to the Eastern Christian world. Paul Evdokimov’s analysis of abstraction in The Art of The Icon reveals the depth of this anathema. Writing about modern abstraction, he states:
For the great founders of abstract art, the desire to penetrate behind the veil of the real world is obviously “theosophical” and occult in nature. Paul Klee wrote that, “at the higher levels, there is the mysterious.” Is this the new era of the knowledge of God? Perhaps, but if it is, it is a knowledge which knows nothing of the incarnate God. It is a knowledge of the ideal and abstract deity which sets aside the divine Subject himself.
What we might take from this is that the Eastern view is much tighter than the Western; the identification with the image, the icon, is so strong that any other form of spiritual cognizance, even within the Christian framework, amounts to the denial of the Incarnation. Orthodoxy is not an inclusive culture, but a strictly exclusive one. Leonid Ouspensky writes:
The other heresy is to surrender to failure from the start, a rejection of the image. In art, it is iconoclasm, the denial of the immanence of the divinity, that is, of the Incarnation itself.
The contrast with the Western Church could not be greater. The cathedrals of Metz and Rheims reveal a far looser, more inclusive visual culture, one that is able to re-ignite itself with both fresh figurative, and abstract, vision. But is this vision activated into prayer?
Troitski Sobor, in contrast to Metz and Rheims, reveals a deeply active, yet closed visual tradition. It is, I would say, more alive with actual prayer, indeed richly so. The pilgrimage there never ceases and the spiritual atmosphere is such that photography is unthinkable.
Almost the opposite may be said of the French cathedrals. Cultural tourists clearly outnumber spiritual pilgrims, and the clicks of cameras largely put to bed the thought of lighting candles. This is not to say that cultural tourists do not experience awe and wonder, but whether that translates into prayer, or simply remains on the level of sensation, is another story.
For myself, I came really, on an artistic pilgrimage, longing to see the glass that raised Marc Chagall’s luminous vision to its most fully realized expression. And I found that the glass is just one aspect of the vibrational whole, just as the icon is within the iconostasis. It is pertinent to note that Chagall felt the need to remind us (and perhaps himself) that the cathedral is not a gallery, but a place of contemplation. These words of his are quoted from a guide to his stained-glass windows in Rheims:
The Cathedral is not a museum, there should be no mistake about this. I believe in love. One doesn’t do a thing if one does not love. This is a bouquet, a mystical bouquet, my gift to Rheims.
The conditions for such a statement, wonderful as it is, do not occur in the Russian Orthodox Church. Clearly, what constitutes sacred art – unlike theology - remains speculative in the West whereas in the East, the visual program – and any internal aesthetic debate - is closed.
In closing this particular discussion we should note that Western cathedrals such as St Etienne are more the exception than the rule. Even so, the Western Church has proven itself to be permeable to modern and contemporary art culture. The speculative and eclectic nature of its embrace could be seen as a healthy and fluid renovation of its interior aesthetic life. It could also, however, be seen as evidence of a theological system that has largely lost its aesthetic moorings.
When confronted with one modern, jarring, abstract window in Notre-Dame de Rheims, located in the apse to the right of the Chagall, I couldn’t but wonder at the conceptual framework that had enabled it to be commissioned. If I had seen this work in a gallery, as a painting, I would not have lingered. Its cold abstract design seems, now, to confirm Evdokimov’s analysis of abstraction as a subconscious game of planes and colours “that do not transcend anything.”
We might conclude from this that if abstract expression lacks either an ideal ratio, on the one hand, or true feeling on the other, it becomes extremely problematic. An icon, on the other hand, even if rendered poorly, remains a liturgical language that can be read. The challenge for the Orthodox world is to maintain the vitality of a language that in many ways has already peaked. For the image is also prone to decoration through unfeeling repetition.
Fig. 1. Abstract window, Rheims.
Bibliography
Cowen, 2005: Painton Cowen, The Rose Window: Splendour and Symbol, Thames and Hudson, London 2005.
Evdokimov, 1972: Paul Evdokimov, The Art of the Icon: Theology of Beauty, trans. Fr. Steven Bigham, Oakwood Publications, California 1972.
Florensky, 2000: Pavel Florensky, Iconostasis, trans. Donald Sheehan and Olga Andrejev, Saint Vladimir Seminary Press, New York 2000.
Guerlin, 2005: Jean-Marie Guerlin, Marc Chagall’s Stained-Glass Windows, trans. Claire Jardillier, Editions la Goelette, Saint-Ouen 2005.
Hiegel: Philippe Hiegel, The Stained-Glass Windows of Metz Cathedral, trans. Ray Beaumont-Craggs, Editions Oeuvre de la Cathedrale de Metz.
Kenworthy, 2010: Scott M. Kenworthy, The Heart of Russia: Trinity Sergius, Monasticism and Society after 1825, Oxford University Press, New York 2010.
Ouspensky, 1992: Leonid Ouspensky, Theology of the Icon: Vol. II, trans. Anthony Gythiel, Saint Vladimir Seminary Press, New York 1992.
Simson, 1988: Otto Von Simson, The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order, Princeton, New York 1988.
Yazykova, 2010: Irina Yazykova, Hidden and Triumphant: The Underground Struggle to Save Russian Iconography, trans. Paul Grenier, Paraclete Press, Massachusetts 2010.
On-Line References
Wikipedia: Andrei Rublev (film).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Rublev_%28film%29
Russiapedia: Andrei Rublev (iconographer).
http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/art/andrei-rublev/
Ria, Trinity Iconostasis
http://ria.ru/photolents/20090717/177713112_177708041.html
Wikipedia: Metz.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metz
Wikipedia: Metz Cathedral.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metz_Cathedral
Of Glass and Gold II: St Etienne, Notre-Dame and the Stained Glass of Marc Chagall
James Waller
This is the second part of a paper given by James
Waller at the Carmelite Centre on Tuesday evening, the 12th of
November 2013. James’s paper contrasts his discovery of the Trinity Sergius
Monastery in Russia, a spiritual centre of Orthodoxy, with Metz Cathedral in
France, a remarkable example of Western Catholic spirituality. All images in
this presentation come from the camera of James Waller. A bibliography, with
links, is at the end of Part III."To me, stained glass is the transparent wall between my heart and the world’s. Stained glass is uplifting, it requires gravity and passion. It must come alive through the light it receives. The Bible is light already, and stained glass should make this obvious through grace and simplicity." Marc Chagall
Those are the words of Marc Chagall, whose stained glass windows adorn the magnificent cathedrals of Metz and Rheims in France. Just as Andrei Rublev drew me to Sergiev Posad, so did Chagall draw me to Rheims and Metz. For both these artists are kings of my colour-loving heart.
The stained glass windows of Chagall in St Etienne and in Notre-Dame de Rheims are haunting embers of romantic modernism, smoldering within soaring structures of Neoplatonic Christian thought. They are visions of the Romantic spirit nestled within the marching vertical lines of an essentially Classical vision; a vision which sought to fuse the rational, even the scientific, with the mystical. It is a vision we call Gothic.
Before exploring the glass of Metz and Rheims, it is, I think essential, to have some idea of what inspired the Gothic vision, of what drove such sublime constructions of stone, lead and glass.
As is the case with all artistic revolutions, the Gothic emerged from the Romanesque style of architecture through a convergence of technical innovation and conceptual inspiration. Advances in stone masonry dovetailed the emergence of translations of key mystical works by Plato, Plotinus, St Augustine, Boethius and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. The writings of St Augustine from the 4th century, in particular De Musica, enflamed the imagination of 12th century French bishops, abbots and theologians. St Bernard of Clairvaux , Abbot Suger of St Denis and Thierry of Chartres were some of the principle figures who developed and championed the aesthetics of St Augustine, as well as the ideas of Plato and Pythagoras, with profound implications for French ecclesiastical architecture.
Pythagorian and Neoplatonic number mysticism, and the mystical significance given to the substance of light were the keystones of the Neoplatonic texts. According to the aesthetics derived from Augustine’s treatise De Musica and and Plato’s work, the Timaeus, the divine could be accessed via principles of mathematical order and a system of ideal ratios. St Augustine, in his treatise, was thinking primarily of music, but his thought extended also to architecture, for as Otto Von Simson states, for Augustine, “…architecture mirrors eternal harmony, as music echoes it.”
Thierry of Chartres, a leading, influential thinker amongst a group of Platonists, went so far as to attempt to explain the Trinity by way of geometry. The key to God, it was thought, was to be found in mathematics. This may sound somewhat off the wall to us now, but as Von Simson states “Gothic art would not have come into existence without the Platonic cosmology cultivated at Chartres.”
If a rediscovered enthusiasm for sacred geometry became the basis for a new and more expansive architecture, it was the potentiality of glass to embody Neoplatonic concepts of light that accelerated the shape and character of that architecture. According to Von Simson, for the medieval follower of St Augustine, "Light and luminous objects, no less than musical consonance, conveyed an insight into the perfection of the cosmos, and a divination of the Creator."
A combined vision of theophanic light and sacred geometry, created, as Von Simson so beautifully puts it, “a transparent, diaphanous architecture.” This vision spurred the stonemasons of the 12th century to evolve new solutions in vaulting, buttressing and stone tracery that would support unprecedented fields of stained-glass, where before there had only been small windows, in ever-more complex geometric patterns. The great rose windows of High Gothic and Rayonnant architecture, that evolved from the mid 13th century onwards represent the apex of that geometric complexity.
Painton Cowen, in his work The Rose Window makes a very interesting observation about what he calls “the race to thinness”; that is the increasing elaboration of stone tracery and window design:
In a sense this was a trend toward decoration…Rayonnant roses may seem more ethereal, but lack the mystical – some might say interestingly erratic – qualities found in earlier, more inventive, roses. The perfection came at a cost.
Instead they were hierarchical, ordered, orthodox, relentlessly linear. Everything was logical, ordered, almost standardized. Aristotle had seemingly triumphed over Plato, Reason and Dogma dominated Faith, Orthodoxy over Heresy.
The essential thing to grasp in all this is that figuration within the stained-glass ensemble became utterly subordinate to the geometric impulse. And in later Rayonnant design it disappeared completely. Cowen’s reference to the “triumph” of Aristotle is a nod to the ‘Unmoved Mover’ of Aristotlean metaphysics; a disinterested God emanating a disinterested Divine Light, perceived through perfect geometric order. This is an important point that we’ll come back to, as it represents a complete antithesis to the icon and to Eastern Orthodox aesthetics.
With all that in mind let us return to St Etienne and Notre-Dame de Rheims. As I mentioned earlier, I came to these cathedrals seeking Chagall, whose aesthetic is completely opposed to any kind of order or geometric perfection.
I made my way to the ancient city of Metz by train, a one and a half hour trip from Paris, in the direction of Strasbourg and the German border. Metz itself is a beautiful town with a fascinating history. The capital of the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, it has variously been part of Germany, France, the kingdom of Lotharingia and Gaul, as well as once having been its own independent republic.
St Etienne is a towering Rayonnant Gothic edifice, located in the centre of Metz. Its construction began in the 13th century within the walls of a 10th century Ottonian basilica, which itself had been built on the site of an ancient shrine to Saint Stephen (or St Etienne) dating from the 5th century AD.
On my arrival I could hardly wait to find the Chagall windows which, for years I had looked at in books. My anticipation was heightened by my frustration at not having seen a single Chagall, from the Met in New York to the great galleries of London, Paris, St Petersburg and Moscow, throughout the previous three months. There was, I thought, some diabolical conspiracy afoot, until I discovered that a huge Chagall retrospective had just finished in Paris only one week before my arrival. Such, at times, is life.
As it turned out it took me some time to find the Chagall windows, tucked away in the ambulatory, as there was so much else to take one’s breath away. Chief among them were the windows by Jaques Villon, created for the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in 1957. Villon’s highly expressive contructivism, divided into powerful sections of colour makes a startling impact within the medieval interior. His stained-glass compositions of the Crucifixion (centre), the Jewish Passover and Last Supper (left), and the Wedding Feast of Cana (right), recalling to my mind the work of Franz Marc, flare brilliantly, even on an overcast day, drawing all eyes towards them.
Fig. 1. Windows for the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, by Jacques Villon, 1957.
Turning back towards the West façade my vision was engulfed by the great 14th century rose window, by Hermann de Munster. It is a cosmic, largely geometric vision, which pushes all figuration out to the peripheral quadrifoils and trefoils. Below it, large arched windows depict two rows of saints, set amidst elaborate High Gothic ornamentation. Glancing, then, up to the left and right one could see two entirely modernist abstract compositions: two small window sections by Bissierre from 1960, the glass segments of which looked for all the world like mosaic tiles, which had been transported miraculously into lead cames and stone portals.
Pulling myself away from this avalanche of eclectic treasures I eventually found myself in the ambulatory, where I stayed for most of the afternoon. The ambulatory windows by Chagall date from 1960. They were made in collaboration with master glassmaker, Charles Marq, in Rheims, who also facilitated the work of Jaques Villon.
Fig. 2 & 3. Ambulatory windows, by Marc Chagall, 1960.
The windows, above the door of the Treasury depict scenes from the Old Testament, brought to life with Chagall’s trademark arabesque and filled with his personal iconography of birds, animals, torahs and entwining figures. Where Villon is all constructivist angles and flat-colour planes, Chagall is all curves and tonal flares. His modulation of tone, within the fabulously fragmented and flowing glass panes lends his colours a deeper, more smoldering dimension.
Chagall’s searing, romantic vision, is a stunning contrast to the South and North Transept windows, created in the 16th century by two different masters. The South Transept is a vast Renaissance ensemble, with a rose window at its apex, created by Valentin Bousch. Here we find the stained-glass in the service of an illusionistic aesthetic. Where the modernist compositional devices of Villon and Chagall agree with the translucent and fragmentary nature of the medium, the realism of Bousch seems to be in conflict with it. The illusion of solidity which Bousch achieved contradicts the immaterial nature of the light which the Gothic vision sought to celebrate.
Fig. 4. South Transept windows by Valentin Bousch, 16th century.
The North Transept window, by Thiebaut de Lixheim, is different in tenor again. Its vision is more truly Gothic, integrating as it does elaborate ornamentation, in white and grey glass, with figures of saints – complete with medieval haloes – saturated in reds and blues. The three rose windows at the apex of the arches absorb all figuration into a crystalline Rayonnant scheme that is truly stunning.
Faced with the relentless verticality of Thiebaut’s ornamentation, the dynamic and flowing arabesques of Chagall’s window to its left come as a relief. Chagall represents the Creation of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden and the Expulsion from Paradise with a joyous explosion of yellow panes, pierced by fragmentary fields of blue, red and green.
Fig. 5. Genesis window by Marc Chagall, 1960.
Sitting on the cold stone of the ambulatory, on that cloudy day, I truly felt transported beyond time. The dark silhouette of the stone tracery, lending the stained glass a midnight radiance, magnified the feeling that a timeless paradise of sorrow and joy was open before me. To me it felt like the most magical place in the world. The cathedral was a cosmos where one could find the most bewitching and unique planets. And those unique planets were held together by the gravity of the Gothic design.
Three quarters of an hour from Paris I entered another cosmos, just as startling and bewitching. This was the High Gothic cathedral of Notre-Dame de Rheims. Now, I had intended only to discuss Metz, but Rheims, being a centre for stained glass production, its cathedral having facilitated the coronation of kings, and being a bastion for the most modern, as well as the most ancient, stained glass, really can’t go unmentioned! Added to this, the work of Chagall forever links St Etienne and Notre-Dame de Rheims in my mind.
Rheims is the home of the Jaques Simon Stained-Glass studio. It was here that Chagall and Villon worked with master glass-maker Charles Marq. And it was here that Chagall created much of his legacy in stained-glass for churches, synagogues and concert halls around the world.
In 1971 Chagall was approached by the Building Federation of Champagne Ardenne, to help them complete the process of restoring Notre-Dame de Rheims, which had been severely damaged in World War One. He was invited to create some of the most important windows in the cathedral: those of the apse, in central view from the entrance portal, hovering behind and above the Sanctuary.
On entering Notre-Dame de Rheims, the fruit of this invitation glows like a distant fire of soft sorrow, a deep blue flame of lancets and roses, its painted figures smoldering in whites, ceruleans and pinks. Charles Marq had rediscovered an ancient chemical process for the forging of the deep blue glass which was used in these windows, the same blue, so I’ve read that was used in Chartres Cathedral many centuries before.
Fig. 6. Apse windows by Marc Chagall, 1974.
In true Chagall style, the narrative scenes in the windows interpolate. In the right lancet of the central window the crucified Christ hovers above scenes from the story of Abraham. In the left lancet Jacob and his ladder dovetail The Descent from the Cross, with The Sacrifice of Isaac pictured directly underneath.
The left window is a veritable cascade of glowering ultramarines and ceruleans. The lead cames form swirling rhythms, sketching in the Kings of Juda, the Prophets, people in prayer, and a towering Virgin and Child, shown at the top of her lineage, the Tree of Jesse.
The right window is suffused with deep purples, reds, blues and greens. Depicted are several of the kings of France, including Charles VII and Saint Louis, together with Joan of Arc. Also included are scenes depicting The Parable of the Good Samaritan and of The Kingdom of Heaven.
The windows are all beautifully fused by Charles Marq’s chemistry of blues and by the swirling, fractal rhythms of the lead cames. There is one other window in this cathedral with a comparable rhythm, and that is by Brigitte Simon, the artist-wife of Charles Marq. Her work is a song of glass, in semi-abstract grisaille, her forms based on the rhythms of nature and the harvest of grain. The splendid tonal modulations and the use of grisaille provide a link between the new modernist windows and the somber grisaille windows of the Gothic period.
Fig. 7. Modern Grisaille windows by Brigitte Simon.
What I find so arresting about the cathedrals of Metz and Rheims is the sheer variety of the stained glass, as opposed to the unity of vision revealed in cathedrals such as Sainte Chappelle in Paris. That variety reveals a history of tensions in Western culture between the extremes of ascetic rationalism (geometric abstraction and Renaissance illusionism) and unbridled Romanticism (poetic modernism). These two extremes could otherwise be personified by the ancient figures of Aristotle and Moses: Inspired logic and reason opposed to ecstatic vision and intuition.
The tempestuous, magical and smoldering energies of Chagall, Simon and Villon, are thus balanced and held, in a mystical equilibrium, by the beautifully ordered ratios of Plato and Pythagoras, as they are applied to the Gothic vision. The one held so surrealistically, within the other, becomes a unique symbol for the human soul. The “bright-haired wave” of the collective unconscious enters the portal of the supremely ordered mind, awakening both to a greater level of being. This, to me, is the great message of two cathedrals that have never stopped evolving.
Of Glass and Gold: I: Troitski Sobor and the Icons of Andrei Rublev
James Waller
A Tale of Two Cathedrals in Orthodox Russia and Catholic France. This is the first part of a paper given by James
Waller at the Carmelite Centre on Tuesday evening, the 12th of
November 2013. James’s paper contrasts his discovery of the Trinity Sergius
Monastery in Russia, a spiritual centre of Orthodoxy, with Metz Cathedral in
France, a remarkable example of Western Catholic spirituality. All images in
this presentation come from the camera of James Waller. A bibliography, with
links, is at the end of Part III.
The name ‘Andrei Rublev’ will be familiar here to most. It is a name that has become, in recent years, an international byword for the realm of mystical beauty that is the domain of the Orthodox Icon. Rublev’s fame was no-doubt catapulted beyond Russia through the French release of Andrei Tarkovsky’s cinematic masterpiece, Andrei Rublev, in the 1970s. It is a magnificent film, the basis of which is the life of Russia’s greatest medieval icon-painter. Part historical evocation, part poetic meditation, the film offers in its finale one of the most moving portrayals of a painting in cinematic history; a stunning sequence of montages, in full colour, of Rublev’s ‘Trinity’, Russia’s most famous icon, painted for the Troitsa Sergieva Lavra (the Trinity Sergius Monastery) between 1425-27.
I first saw this film as an art student in 1996. It was also my first encounter with Rublev’s icons, which immediately became for me, and have ever since been, an ideal of both aesthetic and spiritual beauty.
After many years the work of Rublev lead me, only just this year, to both the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (Tretyakovskaya Gallereya) and to the Trinity Sergius Monastery (Troitsa Sergieva Lavra), located in Sergiev Posad, 70km north-east of the capital. It was an artistic pilgrimage which would have been extremely difficult during Tarkovsky’s time, even though the lavra, unlike the majority of monasteries in the Soviet Union, had been reopened in 1946, after 22 years of closure under Stalin. Upon its closure in 1924 its artistic treasures had been nationalized, and its lands and buildings requisitioned for use by the State.
Due to Stalinist policy Rublev’s masterpiece, the Trinity, along with other masterpieces by his hand, was housed in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, where it has remained. And this is where I would like to begin a discussion of his work, which shall lead us before long to the Troitski Sobor – the Trinity Cathedral – located within the Troitsa Sergieva lavra – the Trinity Sergius Monastery.
The Tretyakov, located in the heart of Moscow, is a stunning gallery, both in terms of its collection and as a state-of-the-art facility. The jewel of its collection is found, without doubt, within the magnificent icon rooms. The first thing that struck me, on entering the Rublev gallery, was the scale of the icon panels. Between 1.5 and 2 meters in height, they are not the modest, portable icons familiar to the West.
Fig. 1. Tretyakov Deisis, School of Andrei Rublev.
Here we see a Deisis by the workshop of Andrei Rublev. It is a magnificent ensemble which takes up the entire end wall of the gallery. The impact, on walking into the room, is stunning. On either side of the enthroned Christ we see icons of the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist, with icons of the two Archangels, Mikhail and Gabriel, placed on the far ends.
In key Rublev is comparable to the Italian painter, Giotto Di Bondonne. The serenely earthed colours of his icons open ever so softly. The tonal and chromatic scale are high, meaning the base colours are typically already quite light. The vibrational effect is thus of light opening up into ever-more ineffable light. A detail from Rublev’s Trinity illustrates this very well. Here we see the blues of the sleeve rising from a mid-tone to a tinted white. And again in the Archangel Gabriel, rising from a mid-tone, vermillion base, to a neutral, apricot-white highlight.
Fig. 2 & 3. Detail of the Trinity / Archangel Gabriel
The serene harmony of Rublev’s work is as much a result of his monumental, yet graceful line and his clear, compositional balance as his colouring. Altogether his work marked a radical shift from the darker and more dramatic work of his influential teacher, Theophanes the Greek. Where we might consider the latter as embodying the fire and brimstone of the Old Testament, the former undoubtedly encapsulates a New Testament feel, where the news is ‘good’, and the Father both loving and forgiving.
Given the violent times Rublev lived in, his realization of such a serene vision is truly remarkable. And this is indeed one of the great themes of Tarkovsky’s film. The prominent philosopher-priest, Pavel Florensky, also wrote about this aspect of Rublev’s work. The following quote is taken from his book, The Trinity St Sergei Monastery and Russia, via Russiapedia:
What marvels and startles us in Rublev’s work is not the subject or the numeral “three” or a cup on the Communion table, but the fact that it shows us truly the Revelation beheld by Him. Under restless circumstances, in the midst of local wars, general savagery and the Tatar intervention, with this lack of peace that had depraved Rus, this infinite, indestructible peace of the world opened to the eye… And this inexplicable world, this incomparable sky-blue, this ineffable grace of the mutual bows, this peaceful unworldliness, this infinite submissiveness to each other - is the artistic content of the Trinity.
Fig. 4. The Trinity by Andrei Rublev.
Rublev was a visual composer of profound economy. We see this especially in the Trinity. The figures of Abraham and Sarah, integral to this Old Testament scene, are eliminated from the composition, empowering the negative spaces and concentrating all the viewer’s focus on the communion of the three angels. They are beautifully balanced in an arrangement of infinite circularity, which in turn is anchored by the crystalline folds of the garments and the strong horizontal and angular lines of the table, floor and seating. The negative space between the Three Persons famously evokes the contours of a chalice. Whether by chance or design, it amplifies the mystery of three distinct Persons being also one.
Before I come to the Trinity Cathedral I would like to look more closely at what an icon, in Orthodox terms, is, and how we might experience it in terms of its environment.
According to St John of Damascus “an icon is the visual image of what is invisible.” The light expressed in the icon is representative of the divine light, said to have ‘transfigured’ Jesus Christ on Mount Tabor. Paul Evdokimov calls this the “Taboric” light: the visible light of what is absolutely invisible. Through the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, Evdokimov writes that “Christ united human energy to divine and deifying energy.” (p28) The icon bears witness to this mysterious unification. Icons of the saints are thus, in the Orthodox world view, representations of historical persons, pierced through by the Light of Mount Tabor, the Light of Christ’s transfiguration. For as St Gregory Palamas says, “he who participates in the light becomes himself light.” Evdokimov speaks of the transfiguration of the concrete forms of this world; a vision of “theo-materialism” where “the whole reality of matter and history” is elevated “without losing anything.” The icon, according to Evdokimov, reveals the Person, matter and history pierced and elevated by divine light. Leonid Ouspensky poses the following: "Does the icon not show the truth and consequences of the divine Incarnation? Does it not illustrate with the utmost fullness and depth the Christian doctrine about the relationship between man and God, and between man and the world?"
The icon is, above all, in Orthodox life, the perpetual witness to the Incarnation of Christ, actualized, according to Christian belief, in the Transfiguration. This is the foundation and touchstone of Orthodox spirituality.
How is the relationship between “human and divine and deifying energy” expressed in the icon? There are essentially two parts to the icon: The part rendered in colours – primarily the figure but also landscape and object, and the part rendered by gold. These two sections interpenetrate, the former representing the human, the latter, the divine. Sophia Ivanova, in conversation with Pavel Florensky in Iconostasis, describes this relationship:
And just the same way that the creative grace of God is both cause and condition of all earth’s creation, just so in the icon: after the abstract pattern is sketched, the process of incarnating the icon begins with the gold-leafing of light. Further, in the same way that the icon begins with the gold of creative grace, it ends in the highlighting with the gold of illumination, assist. In this visual ontology, the painting of the icon repeats the main stages of God’s creation from absolute nothingness to holy creation.
Further on Ivanova states:
In the icon painting process the golden colour…first surrounds the areas that will become the figures, manifesting them as possibilities to be transfigured…
The “possibilities” to be “transfigured” (saint, landscape, object) are rendered from dark to light, with the light ‘opening’ out of the preceding tones. Light opens on the end point of a scale, as if on a ladder of chromatic fire. This ‘opening’ of light is the energy coming ‘through’ from the divine plane of gold ‘into’ the corporeal world. Ivanova describes this energy as it manifests in the rendering of the figures’ garments:
From the beginning of the 15th century…the folds become longer and wider and lose their material softness…as if the person’s lines and planes were crystallized matter…As a result what the iconic clothes now show is a spiritually resilient energy fulfilling a developed and coherent power.
The quality Ivanova describes is exemplified by the work of Rublev, and his workshop, in the Tretyakov Gallery. But there is another aspect of the icon’s ontology that I’d like to consider. And that is the environment it participates in and how this affects our experience of it.
From a purely aesthetic point of view the gallery is an ideal environment to view Rublev’s icons. The lighting is superb, the environment calm, the space ample. But the gallery itself is mute; the arrangement is sensitive, but categorical. Awakened to Rublev’s harmonies the viewer, compelled equally by the gallery’s logic, moves onto the next room, the next categorical period of iconography’s development. The harmonies awakened are thus commuted through the successive act of seeing. This is a problem I’ve long had with galleries and why I am naturally drawn to spaces where the artwork both activates and is activated by the architecture and by a purpose which lies beyond both.
These experiences of seeing have lead me to ask a seemingly obvious question, What is the object? In pondering this I have found that the art object exists in a simultaneous state of continual creation and degradation. A sacred object grows and lives, decays and dies, according to its function. Rublev’s icons, in the Tretyakov, have, perhaps, less life in them, than if they were venerated in a sobor. Viewed in a secular space, they are divested of their function; they fail to properly activate the rich, inner life of the soul; separated from the prayerful, liturgical environment they were intended for, they are, perhaps, less than what they were intended to be. And so it is, that the copies of Rublev’s Trinity, in Troitski Sobor, gleam as integral elements of an ancient cosmos, and Rublev’s masterpiece, lit behind glass in a museum, succumbs to the fate of the artefact. And so, perhaps, it is with all art, though religious art in particular: in the museum it slowly dies.
This brings me to the Trinity Cathedral (Troitski Sobor) and the Trinity Sergius Monastery (Troitsa Sergieva Lavra), located, as I mentioned earlier, 70 km north-east of Moscow.
Fig. 5. View of the Lavra.
Troitsa Sergieva Lavra is known as the heart of monasticism in Russia. It began in 1330 as a simple skete, that is a small community of monks, each with his own basic dwelling, who come together in prayer. Its founder was St Sergius of Radonezh (Prepodobni Sergi Radonezha), the father of Russian monasticism and one of Russia’s most beloved saints. Part of the story of St Sergius is told in pictures by the murals which adorn the monastery’s entrance arch.
Fig. 6 & 7. Murals on the walls of the monastery entrance arch and tunnel.
Andrei Rublev lived and worked in the lavra under Fr Sergius’ successor, Fr Nikon. Together with Danil Cherni he painted the frescoes and icons for the newly rebuilt Troitski Sobor (Trinity cathedral) between 1425-1427, which had been destroyed during an earlier Tartar invasion.
The cathedral itself is rather small. Its structure is built on four pillars and is topped by a single dome, representing God the Father. Within the sobor is housed the relics of St Sergius, which, rather incredibly, were preserved in the monastery throughout its suppression and closure. As such it has been a major focus of spiritual pilgrimage for centuries. Pilgrims have come seeking healing, to give offerings and to have masses performed. In centuries gone by they would walk for many days, if not weeks, to reach the lavra. Even with the advent of the rail in the 19th century people still came on foot. My own pilgrimage, it must be said, was more of an artistic one and I had the relative comfort of a modern commuter train from Moscow, rather than a four day walk– although finding where to go and how, with limited Russian, is an adventure all its own!
Obviously I did find my way, all the way to the entrance of Troitski Sobor. The interior of the cathedral is dim. Candle light barely illuminates the glistening red archways, the wax-sheened frescoes half-hidden, half-remembered, the drawn eyes of figures ghosting the centuries, baring witness to a pilgrimage that never appears to end. It is an intimate space, with people both sitting and standing. Women are constantly singing; the song and the prayer to St Sergius, it is said, never ceases.
Through the narthex and nave archways the iconostasis breathes out as if from some interminable dusk, the somber gold glinting like an interior echo of the midnight sun. Each icon is distinct and yet integral to the tableaux. Each darkened face like that of an eclipse, each pair of eyes like distant sorrow-filled stars in an ancient cosmos. And the iconostasis is truly a cosmos, a concentration of inter-related energies crackling with centuries of prayer. One does not ‘view’ the icons, one does not ‘inspect’ them or ‘analyse’ them; one beholds their presence, a choir of figures standing somehow, beyond time. One beholds them and is beheld in turn, for the centuries of collective unconscious imbued in the silent choir has much to say to the fleeting mortality of the beholder.
Fig. 9. Link to an internet image of The Trinity Cathedral iconostasis.
The nature of the sacred space, of course precludes photography, however I managed to find this photograph on the internet which is itself from a publication titled The Trinity Lavra. It shows all five rows of the iconostasis. The pillars, which you can see on either side of the picture, cut out the view of half of the panels in each row. So let us work with what we can see.
The bottom row, called the ‘Sovereign row’ largely dates from the 17th and 18th centuries. At its centre are the Beautiful Gates, the doorway between the nave and the sanctuary. The first icon to the left is Hodegetria, from the late 15th century. The first to the right is the Old Testament Trinity by Baranov, painted in 1929. The timing is interesting to note as it coincides with the monastery’s closure and I’m presuming that it may have been painted to replace Rublev’s Trinity, which, at the time, was moved to the Tretyakov. It mirrors another Old Testament Trinity, from the 16th century, to the left of the Hodegetria icon. Both are based on Rublev’s classic Trinity icon. To the right of Baranov’s work is an undated copy of another Rublev icon. The third to the left of centre is the Holy Mandylion from 1674.
The second row is called the Deisis Row and is entirely the work of Andrei Rublev’s workshop, from 1425-1427. It is similar in proportion to the Deisis Row which we looked at, from the Treyakov. As in the Tretyakov Deisis it shows Christ enthroned, flanked by the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist and the Archangels, together with the principle apostles, theologians and martyrs.
The next row up is the Festival Row, also by Rublev’s workshop. The icons are much smaller and harder to see. They include, however, icons depicting the major Orthodox festivals, such as Christmas, The Last Supper, the Annunciation, etc.
Above the Festival Row we see the row of Old Testament Prophets, also entirely by Rublev’s workshop. Finally, above the Prophets Row is a line of tall, arched icons, comprised of the Forefathers, also from the Old Testament, and dating from the 16th century.
Of the frescoes it is more difficult to speak as I’m without adequate visual resources. We do know, however, that Rublev and Chernyi’s frescoes were painted over in the 19th century and it is not clear to me whether what is now visible are the restored originals or the 19th century paint work. The UNESCO website for the lavra identifies the work as Rublev’s but I have as yet found no literature to confirm when and if the restoration work was carried out.
The experience of being within the Trinity Cathedral is on a completely different level to the one had in the Tretyakov. Its atmosphere precludes any thought of academic categorization such as the information I’ve just sketched in. For in the sobor one enters, and participates in, a creative symbol of the cosmos. The harmonies opened by the frescoes and icons transmit to the faithful and transform into prayers, which flow in turn outwards, towards the icons, which in turn grow in harmonic and spiritual depth. And so it is that pilgrim, sacred space and sacred art form a circulatory power. For the Person, in the Orthodox world view, is the seed of the icon and the icon the seed of the Person. In Orthodox spirituality the destiny of each Person is to be transfigured by the Taboric light, to be filled and transformed by Divinity, to become a living icon.
And what of the non-Orthodox visitor? The experience, for me at least was one of being held within a deep and beautiful centre. One stays and dwells, rather than ‘moves on’. The atmosphere penetrates, unforgettably so. The particulars of the iconostasis were not important to me at the time, and remain subordinate in my mind to the power of the whole. The individual icons are more, it seems, than their physical properties determine. They are parts of a greater collective, meta-aesthetic whole. They activate and are activated, as we are.
The name ‘Andrei Rublev’ will be familiar here to most. It is a name that has become, in recent years, an international byword for the realm of mystical beauty that is the domain of the Orthodox Icon. Rublev’s fame was no-doubt catapulted beyond Russia through the French release of Andrei Tarkovsky’s cinematic masterpiece, Andrei Rublev, in the 1970s. It is a magnificent film, the basis of which is the life of Russia’s greatest medieval icon-painter. Part historical evocation, part poetic meditation, the film offers in its finale one of the most moving portrayals of a painting in cinematic history; a stunning sequence of montages, in full colour, of Rublev’s ‘Trinity’, Russia’s most famous icon, painted for the Troitsa Sergieva Lavra (the Trinity Sergius Monastery) between 1425-27.
I first saw this film as an art student in 1996. It was also my first encounter with Rublev’s icons, which immediately became for me, and have ever since been, an ideal of both aesthetic and spiritual beauty.
After many years the work of Rublev lead me, only just this year, to both the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (Tretyakovskaya Gallereya) and to the Trinity Sergius Monastery (Troitsa Sergieva Lavra), located in Sergiev Posad, 70km north-east of the capital. It was an artistic pilgrimage which would have been extremely difficult during Tarkovsky’s time, even though the lavra, unlike the majority of monasteries in the Soviet Union, had been reopened in 1946, after 22 years of closure under Stalin. Upon its closure in 1924 its artistic treasures had been nationalized, and its lands and buildings requisitioned for use by the State.
Due to Stalinist policy Rublev’s masterpiece, the Trinity, along with other masterpieces by his hand, was housed in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, where it has remained. And this is where I would like to begin a discussion of his work, which shall lead us before long to the Troitski Sobor – the Trinity Cathedral – located within the Troitsa Sergieva lavra – the Trinity Sergius Monastery.
The Tretyakov, located in the heart of Moscow, is a stunning gallery, both in terms of its collection and as a state-of-the-art facility. The jewel of its collection is found, without doubt, within the magnificent icon rooms. The first thing that struck me, on entering the Rublev gallery, was the scale of the icon panels. Between 1.5 and 2 meters in height, they are not the modest, portable icons familiar to the West.
Fig. 1. Tretyakov Deisis, School of Andrei Rublev.
Here we see a Deisis by the workshop of Andrei Rublev. It is a magnificent ensemble which takes up the entire end wall of the gallery. The impact, on walking into the room, is stunning. On either side of the enthroned Christ we see icons of the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist, with icons of the two Archangels, Mikhail and Gabriel, placed on the far ends.
In key Rublev is comparable to the Italian painter, Giotto Di Bondonne. The serenely earthed colours of his icons open ever so softly. The tonal and chromatic scale are high, meaning the base colours are typically already quite light. The vibrational effect is thus of light opening up into ever-more ineffable light. A detail from Rublev’s Trinity illustrates this very well. Here we see the blues of the sleeve rising from a mid-tone to a tinted white. And again in the Archangel Gabriel, rising from a mid-tone, vermillion base, to a neutral, apricot-white highlight.
Fig. 2 & 3. Detail of the Trinity / Archangel Gabriel
The serene harmony of Rublev’s work is as much a result of his monumental, yet graceful line and his clear, compositional balance as his colouring. Altogether his work marked a radical shift from the darker and more dramatic work of his influential teacher, Theophanes the Greek. Where we might consider the latter as embodying the fire and brimstone of the Old Testament, the former undoubtedly encapsulates a New Testament feel, where the news is ‘good’, and the Father both loving and forgiving.
Given the violent times Rublev lived in, his realization of such a serene vision is truly remarkable. And this is indeed one of the great themes of Tarkovsky’s film. The prominent philosopher-priest, Pavel Florensky, also wrote about this aspect of Rublev’s work. The following quote is taken from his book, The Trinity St Sergei Monastery and Russia, via Russiapedia:
What marvels and startles us in Rublev’s work is not the subject or the numeral “three” or a cup on the Communion table, but the fact that it shows us truly the Revelation beheld by Him. Under restless circumstances, in the midst of local wars, general savagery and the Tatar intervention, with this lack of peace that had depraved Rus, this infinite, indestructible peace of the world opened to the eye… And this inexplicable world, this incomparable sky-blue, this ineffable grace of the mutual bows, this peaceful unworldliness, this infinite submissiveness to each other - is the artistic content of the Trinity.
Rublev was a visual composer of profound economy. We see this especially in the Trinity. The figures of Abraham and Sarah, integral to this Old Testament scene, are eliminated from the composition, empowering the negative spaces and concentrating all the viewer’s focus on the communion of the three angels. They are beautifully balanced in an arrangement of infinite circularity, which in turn is anchored by the crystalline folds of the garments and the strong horizontal and angular lines of the table, floor and seating. The negative space between the Three Persons famously evokes the contours of a chalice. Whether by chance or design, it amplifies the mystery of three distinct Persons being also one.
Before I come to the Trinity Cathedral I would like to look more closely at what an icon, in Orthodox terms, is, and how we might experience it in terms of its environment.
According to St John of Damascus “an icon is the visual image of what is invisible.” The light expressed in the icon is representative of the divine light, said to have ‘transfigured’ Jesus Christ on Mount Tabor. Paul Evdokimov calls this the “Taboric” light: the visible light of what is absolutely invisible. Through the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, Evdokimov writes that “Christ united human energy to divine and deifying energy.” (p28) The icon bears witness to this mysterious unification. Icons of the saints are thus, in the Orthodox world view, representations of historical persons, pierced through by the Light of Mount Tabor, the Light of Christ’s transfiguration. For as St Gregory Palamas says, “he who participates in the light becomes himself light.” Evdokimov speaks of the transfiguration of the concrete forms of this world; a vision of “theo-materialism” where “the whole reality of matter and history” is elevated “without losing anything.” The icon, according to Evdokimov, reveals the Person, matter and history pierced and elevated by divine light. Leonid Ouspensky poses the following: "Does the icon not show the truth and consequences of the divine Incarnation? Does it not illustrate with the utmost fullness and depth the Christian doctrine about the relationship between man and God, and between man and the world?"
The icon is, above all, in Orthodox life, the perpetual witness to the Incarnation of Christ, actualized, according to Christian belief, in the Transfiguration. This is the foundation and touchstone of Orthodox spirituality.
How is the relationship between “human and divine and deifying energy” expressed in the icon? There are essentially two parts to the icon: The part rendered in colours – primarily the figure but also landscape and object, and the part rendered by gold. These two sections interpenetrate, the former representing the human, the latter, the divine. Sophia Ivanova, in conversation with Pavel Florensky in Iconostasis, describes this relationship:
And just the same way that the creative grace of God is both cause and condition of all earth’s creation, just so in the icon: after the abstract pattern is sketched, the process of incarnating the icon begins with the gold-leafing of light. Further, in the same way that the icon begins with the gold of creative grace, it ends in the highlighting with the gold of illumination, assist. In this visual ontology, the painting of the icon repeats the main stages of God’s creation from absolute nothingness to holy creation.
Further on Ivanova states:
In the icon painting process the golden colour…first surrounds the areas that will become the figures, manifesting them as possibilities to be transfigured…
The “possibilities” to be “transfigured” (saint, landscape, object) are rendered from dark to light, with the light ‘opening’ out of the preceding tones. Light opens on the end point of a scale, as if on a ladder of chromatic fire. This ‘opening’ of light is the energy coming ‘through’ from the divine plane of gold ‘into’ the corporeal world. Ivanova describes this energy as it manifests in the rendering of the figures’ garments:
From the beginning of the 15th century…the folds become longer and wider and lose their material softness…as if the person’s lines and planes were crystallized matter…As a result what the iconic clothes now show is a spiritually resilient energy fulfilling a developed and coherent power.
The quality Ivanova describes is exemplified by the work of Rublev, and his workshop, in the Tretyakov Gallery. But there is another aspect of the icon’s ontology that I’d like to consider. And that is the environment it participates in and how this affects our experience of it.
From a purely aesthetic point of view the gallery is an ideal environment to view Rublev’s icons. The lighting is superb, the environment calm, the space ample. But the gallery itself is mute; the arrangement is sensitive, but categorical. Awakened to Rublev’s harmonies the viewer, compelled equally by the gallery’s logic, moves onto the next room, the next categorical period of iconography’s development. The harmonies awakened are thus commuted through the successive act of seeing. This is a problem I’ve long had with galleries and why I am naturally drawn to spaces where the artwork both activates and is activated by the architecture and by a purpose which lies beyond both.
These experiences of seeing have lead me to ask a seemingly obvious question, What is the object? In pondering this I have found that the art object exists in a simultaneous state of continual creation and degradation. A sacred object grows and lives, decays and dies, according to its function. Rublev’s icons, in the Tretyakov, have, perhaps, less life in them, than if they were venerated in a sobor. Viewed in a secular space, they are divested of their function; they fail to properly activate the rich, inner life of the soul; separated from the prayerful, liturgical environment they were intended for, they are, perhaps, less than what they were intended to be. And so it is, that the copies of Rublev’s Trinity, in Troitski Sobor, gleam as integral elements of an ancient cosmos, and Rublev’s masterpiece, lit behind glass in a museum, succumbs to the fate of the artefact. And so, perhaps, it is with all art, though religious art in particular: in the museum it slowly dies.
This brings me to the Trinity Cathedral (Troitski Sobor) and the Trinity Sergius Monastery (Troitsa Sergieva Lavra), located, as I mentioned earlier, 70 km north-east of Moscow.
Fig. 5. View of the Lavra.
Troitsa Sergieva Lavra is known as the heart of monasticism in Russia. It began in 1330 as a simple skete, that is a small community of monks, each with his own basic dwelling, who come together in prayer. Its founder was St Sergius of Radonezh (Prepodobni Sergi Radonezha), the father of Russian monasticism and one of Russia’s most beloved saints. Part of the story of St Sergius is told in pictures by the murals which adorn the monastery’s entrance arch.
Fig. 6 & 7. Murals on the walls of the monastery entrance arch and tunnel.
Andrei Rublev lived and worked in the lavra under Fr Sergius’ successor, Fr Nikon. Together with Danil Cherni he painted the frescoes and icons for the newly rebuilt Troitski Sobor (Trinity cathedral) between 1425-1427, which had been destroyed during an earlier Tartar invasion.
The cathedral itself is rather small. Its structure is built on four pillars and is topped by a single dome, representing God the Father. Within the sobor is housed the relics of St Sergius, which, rather incredibly, were preserved in the monastery throughout its suppression and closure. As such it has been a major focus of spiritual pilgrimage for centuries. Pilgrims have come seeking healing, to give offerings and to have masses performed. In centuries gone by they would walk for many days, if not weeks, to reach the lavra. Even with the advent of the rail in the 19th century people still came on foot. My own pilgrimage, it must be said, was more of an artistic one and I had the relative comfort of a modern commuter train from Moscow, rather than a four day walk– although finding where to go and how, with limited Russian, is an adventure all its own!
Obviously I did find my way, all the way to the entrance of Troitski Sobor. The interior of the cathedral is dim. Candle light barely illuminates the glistening red archways, the wax-sheened frescoes half-hidden, half-remembered, the drawn eyes of figures ghosting the centuries, baring witness to a pilgrimage that never appears to end. It is an intimate space, with people both sitting and standing. Women are constantly singing; the song and the prayer to St Sergius, it is said, never ceases.
Through the narthex and nave archways the iconostasis breathes out as if from some interminable dusk, the somber gold glinting like an interior echo of the midnight sun. Each icon is distinct and yet integral to the tableaux. Each darkened face like that of an eclipse, each pair of eyes like distant sorrow-filled stars in an ancient cosmos. And the iconostasis is truly a cosmos, a concentration of inter-related energies crackling with centuries of prayer. One does not ‘view’ the icons, one does not ‘inspect’ them or ‘analyse’ them; one beholds their presence, a choir of figures standing somehow, beyond time. One beholds them and is beheld in turn, for the centuries of collective unconscious imbued in the silent choir has much to say to the fleeting mortality of the beholder.
Fig. 9. Link to an internet image of The Trinity Cathedral iconostasis.
The nature of the sacred space, of course precludes photography, however I managed to find this photograph on the internet which is itself from a publication titled The Trinity Lavra. It shows all five rows of the iconostasis. The pillars, which you can see on either side of the picture, cut out the view of half of the panels in each row. So let us work with what we can see.
The bottom row, called the ‘Sovereign row’ largely dates from the 17th and 18th centuries. At its centre are the Beautiful Gates, the doorway between the nave and the sanctuary. The first icon to the left is Hodegetria, from the late 15th century. The first to the right is the Old Testament Trinity by Baranov, painted in 1929. The timing is interesting to note as it coincides with the monastery’s closure and I’m presuming that it may have been painted to replace Rublev’s Trinity, which, at the time, was moved to the Tretyakov. It mirrors another Old Testament Trinity, from the 16th century, to the left of the Hodegetria icon. Both are based on Rublev’s classic Trinity icon. To the right of Baranov’s work is an undated copy of another Rublev icon. The third to the left of centre is the Holy Mandylion from 1674.
The second row is called the Deisis Row and is entirely the work of Andrei Rublev’s workshop, from 1425-1427. It is similar in proportion to the Deisis Row which we looked at, from the Treyakov. As in the Tretyakov Deisis it shows Christ enthroned, flanked by the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist and the Archangels, together with the principle apostles, theologians and martyrs.
The next row up is the Festival Row, also by Rublev’s workshop. The icons are much smaller and harder to see. They include, however, icons depicting the major Orthodox festivals, such as Christmas, The Last Supper, the Annunciation, etc.
Above the Festival Row we see the row of Old Testament Prophets, also entirely by Rublev’s workshop. Finally, above the Prophets Row is a line of tall, arched icons, comprised of the Forefathers, also from the Old Testament, and dating from the 16th century.
Of the frescoes it is more difficult to speak as I’m without adequate visual resources. We do know, however, that Rublev and Chernyi’s frescoes were painted over in the 19th century and it is not clear to me whether what is now visible are the restored originals or the 19th century paint work. The UNESCO website for the lavra identifies the work as Rublev’s but I have as yet found no literature to confirm when and if the restoration work was carried out.
The experience of being within the Trinity Cathedral is on a completely different level to the one had in the Tretyakov. Its atmosphere precludes any thought of academic categorization such as the information I’ve just sketched in. For in the sobor one enters, and participates in, a creative symbol of the cosmos. The harmonies opened by the frescoes and icons transmit to the faithful and transform into prayers, which flow in turn outwards, towards the icons, which in turn grow in harmonic and spiritual depth. And so it is that pilgrim, sacred space and sacred art form a circulatory power. For the Person, in the Orthodox world view, is the seed of the icon and the icon the seed of the Person. In Orthodox spirituality the destiny of each Person is to be transfigured by the Taboric light, to be filled and transformed by Divinity, to become a living icon.
And what of the non-Orthodox visitor? The experience, for me at least was one of being held within a deep and beautiful centre. One stays and dwells, rather than ‘moves on’. The atmosphere penetrates, unforgettably so. The particulars of the iconostasis were not important to me at the time, and remain subordinate in my mind to the power of the whole. The individual icons are more, it seems, than their physical properties determine. They are parts of a greater collective, meta-aesthetic whole. They activate and are activated, as we are.
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