Kontoglou Reviews the Book: The Meaning of Icons
- The Orthodox Ethos Team
- 16 hours ago
- 5 min read
By Constantine Cavarnos, from Meetings with Kontoglou
Editor’s Note: Meetings with Kontoglou is a book Constantine Cavarnos wrote when he polished some notes from his diary as he travelled in Greece and had opportunities to converse with Photios Kontoglou (the renowned iconographer that resurrected the traditional and liturgical iconography of the East Romans). One chapter in the book (pp. 103-108), Cavarnos and Kontoglou are discussing the book The Meaning of Icons by Leonide Ouspensky and Vladimir Lossky. This is Cavarnos’ recollection of that conversation.
"Regarding the Book The Meaning of Icons"
Our next meeting took place three days later, in the evening of October 2, again at his home. I had brought from Boston a copy of The Meaning of Icons by Leonide Ouspensky and Vladimir Lossky, and presented it to Photios. We went over the book leisurely, and he made comments on its many illustrations.
Kontoglou knew the authors of this book from other publications of theirs. Ouspensky he knew also through correspondence. About his acquaintance with Ouspensky, he says in an article which was published in Eleutheria on August 31, 1952:
I came to know him three years ago. One day I received a letter from him written in French, but in religious language…. Since then we have been united spiritually…. In addition to letters, he has sent me from time to time a few of his writings on the art of the tradition. Among others, he sent me his little book L’Icone.
What occasioned this first letter of Ouspensky was, he says, the fact that Ouspensky had heard that “in Greece there lived an iconographer who painted according to the liturgical tradition.”
L’Icone was published in 1948 in Paris. Kontoglou was quite impressed by what Ouspensky says in it about traditional Orthodox iconography. This led him to translate it into Greek as a means of promoting the cause of Byzantine iconography, which was then little appreciated and was even despised by many. It was published in July of 1952 by “Astir” Publishing Co. of Al. & E. Papademetriou at Athens. In the seven-page Preface which he wrote for the Greek version, he lauds Ouspensky as a pious Orthodox Christian, an iconographer, a critic of modernist icons and a defender of traditional Orthodox iconography.
Lossky he knew particularly through his book The Mystical Theology of the Orthodox Church, which he had read in the original, French edition that appeared in 1944 in Paris. Kontoglou held this book in high regard and made reference to it in some of his articles in Eleutheria. On the basis of this book, he remarks in one of them: “Vladimir Lossky is one of the most important Orthodox theologians who are making known to the world the depth of Orthodoxy” (September 27, 1953).
The book of these two writers, The Meaning of Icons, did not enthuse Kontoglou. He found the icons—which are Russian works dating from the 15th to the 19th century, except for three which are Greek and one Coptic—weak as regards expression. The drawings he found similarly weak and also poorly drawn, without clearly defined form. Even the best known work of Andrei Rublev (ca. 1370–1430)—Russia’s most famous iconographer—the icon known as “The Holy Trinity,” he found weak. The three Angels, he pointed out, have rather narrow and drooping shoulders and female faces.
Kontoglou's "Archangel Michael" (left) and Rublev's "The Holy Trinity" (right)
In connection with these Angels of Rublev, it should be explained that according to the Orthodox tradition of iconography, Angels and Archangels should be depicted neither as young women, nor as infants—both of these types of representation are alien to traditional Orthodox iconography—but as beardless young men. The depiction of the Holy Trinity in the form of three Angels has its justification in Abraham’s vision of God in this form. In the Septuagint, Greek text of Genesis (18:1), the three Angels that appeared to him are spoken of as male human beings (andres). And in Exodus, the masculine pronoun (hoi, tous) is used in speaking of the Cherubim (25:18–19). It might be added that the Archangels mentioned in the Old Testament all have male names: Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael. Further, in the New Testament, Angels appear in the form of young men, not in the form of young ladies or infants. Thus, in the Gospel according to Mark, we read: “Entering into the sepulcher, they saw a young man (neaniskos), sitting in the right side” (16:5); and in the Gospel according to Luke, we read: “And behold, two men (andres) stood by them in shining garments” (24:4). The references to the Angels who were seen at the sepulcher of Christ after His Resurrection.
Concerning the icon of the “Holy Trinity,” it must be noted that Rublev makes a serious omission: he leaves out Abraham and his wife Sarah. Their presence is necessary, in order to remind the beholder that this is a depiction of a manifestation of the triune God to Abraham and Sarah in a vision in the form of three Angels. For this reason Greek icons depicting the vision have the inscription: “The Hospitality of Abraham.” Otherwise, with only the Angels, the false impression is given that God is three Angels. Just as the dove which is depicted in the Baptism of Christ, if it were painted alone—without Christ, the Baptism, Jordan River, etc.—with the Inscription: “The Holy Spirit,” would give the false impression that the Holy Spirit is a dove.
With regard to the text of The Meaning of Icons, I pointed out among other things the fact that both Lossky and Ouspensky, as well as Titus Burckhardt, who contributed the foreword, assert that Russian iconography is superior to Byzantine iconography, more spiritual, the peak of the whole of Orthodox iconography. Ouspensky, I added, especially dwelt on this point. I translated, in particular, the following statements of Ouspensky: “The art of Byzantium… does not always reach the spiritual height and purity characteristic of the general level of Russian iconography” (p. 45). “Even the masterpieces of the classical period of Byzantine art are not entirely devoid of sensual grossness” (p. 46). In Russia, iconography “attained to an exceptionally high level of purity,… which makes Russian iconography outstanding among all the ramifications of Orthodox iconography” (p. 46). Kontoglou was astonished that Ouspensky, whom he had regarded as a staunch champion of Byzantine iconography, had made such statements. He dismissed them as quite groundless.
Kontoglou made a sharp distinction in Russian iconography between its earlier, Byzantine, Greek phase—which stretches from the 11th to the 14th century—and its later, over-Russianized phase, from which the illustrations in The Meaning of Icons have chiefly been drawn. He thought highly of the iconography of the earlier, by not of the later, period. The icons of the earlier period possess a power, simplicity, clarity, and spirituality which are not found in the icons of the later period. His high regard for the older iconography of Russia is evinced by the fact that he published some photographs in his periodical Kibotos that illustrate it—for example, the Theotokos in the apse of the Church Holy Wisdom in Kiev (11th century) and the original Theotokos of Vladimir (12th century).
