Download or read book Icons and the Mystical Origins of Christianity written by Richard Temple and published by Element Books Limited. This book was released on 1990 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uses the imagery of icons as a basis for exploring the true mystical source of the Christian faith.
Download or read book Icons and the Mystical Origins of Christianity written by Richard Temple and published by HarperElement. This book was released on 1990 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Mystical Language of Icons written by Solrunn Nes and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2009-04-10 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Solrunn Nes, one of Europe's most admired iconographers, illuminates the world of Christian icons, explaining the motifs, gestures, and colors common to these profound symbols of faith. Nes explores in depth a number of famous icons, including those of the Greater Feasts, the Mother of God, and a number of the better-known saints, enriching her discussion with references to Scripture, early Christian writings, and liturgy. She also leads readers through the process and techniques of icon painting, showing each step with photographs, and includes more than fifty of her own original works of art.
Download or read book Icons written by Richard C. C. Temple and published by Saqi Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated treasure trove of icons throughout history.
Download or read book Christianity written by Linda Woodhead and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a short, accessible analysis of Christianity that focuses on its social and cultural diversity as well as its historical dimensions.
Download or read book Mystical Language of Icons written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Christian Icons written by Willian Dusett and published by . This book was released on 2021-06-02 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Christianity, an icon (from Greek εικων, eikon, "image") is a flat picture of Jesus Christ, Mary, or other saints. Most icons are painted in egg tempera on wood, but some are created with mosaic tiles, ivory, or other materials. In Orthodox Christianity, icons are sacred works of art that provide inspiration and connect the worshipper with the spiritual world. The scenes depicted in icons usually relate to liturgical celebrations rather than directly to historical events. There is no doubt that ancient methods of icon writing are very far from what we perceive the art to be in the modern world. This book will bring the act of seeing and perceiving God in the visual image back into a modern-day perspective. Inside the pages of this book, you will learn, explore and discover the evolution of these icons from hundreds of years ago to the present day, with chapters that explore: ➢A personal view ➢Relevance and importance of icons today ➢How the art developed ➢Cultural perspectives ➢Art as prayer ➢A modern history of icon discovery ➢How icons deepen our understanding of God ➢And much more...
Download or read book Icons and the Liturgy East and West written by Nicholas Denysenko and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2017-11-15 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Icons and the Liturgy, East and West: History, Theology, and Culture is a collection of nine essays developed from papers presented at the 2013 Huffington Ecumenical Institute’s symposium “Icons and Images,” the first of a three-part series on the history and future of liturgical arts in Catholic and Orthodox churches. Catholic and Orthodox scholars and practitioners gathered at Loyola Marymount University to present papers discussing the history, theology, ecclesiology, and hermeneutics of iconology, sacred art, and sacred space in the Orthodox and Catholic traditions. Nicholas Denysenko’s book offers two significant contributions to the field of Eastern and Western Christian traditions: a critical assessment of the status of liturgical arts in postmodern Catholicism and Orthodoxy and an analysis of the continuity with tradition in creatively engaging the creation of sacred art and icons. The reader will travel to Rome, Byzantium, Armenia, Chile, and to other parts of the world, to see how Christians of yesterday and today have experienced divine encounters through icons. Theologians and students of theology and religious studies, art historians, scholars of Eastern Christian Studies, and Catholic liturgists will find much to appreciate in these pages. Contributors: Nicholas Denysenko, Robert Taft, S.J., Thomas M. Lucas, S.J., Bissera V. Pentcheva, Kristin Noreen, Christina Maranci, Dorian Llywelyn, S.J., Michael Courey, and Andriy Chirovsky.
Download or read book Inner Christianity written by Richard Smoley and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2002-10-08 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eye-opening introduction to the complex world of esoteric Christianity—perfect for the general reader This guide to mystical and esoteric Christianity speaks from a nonsectarian point of view, unearthing insights from the whole of the Christian tradition, orthodox and heretical, famous and obscure. The esoteric tradition has traditionally searched for meanings that would yield a deeper inner knowledge of the divine. While traditional Christianity draws a timeline from Adam's Fall to the Day of Judgment, the esoteric often sees time as folding in on itself, bringing every point to the here and now. While the Church fought bitterly over dogma, the esoteric borrowed freely from other traditions—Kabbalah, astrology, and alchemy—in their search for metaphors of inner truth. Rather than basing his book around exponents of esoteric doctrine, scholar Richard Smoley concentrates on the questions that are of interest to every searching Christian. How can one attain direct spiritual experience? What does "the Fall" really tell us about coming to terms with the world we live in? Can we find salvation in everyday life? How can we ascend, spiritually, through the various levels of existence? What was Christ's true message to humankind? From the Gospel of Thomas to A Course in Miracles, from the Jesus Prayer to alchemy and Tarot, from Origen to Dante to Jung, Richard Smoley sheds the light of an alternative Christianity on these issues and more.
Download or read book The Icon Painter s Handbook written by Ian Knowles and published by Youcanprint. This book was released on 2023-06-01 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook is an in depth introduction to the theory and practice of Byzantine icon painting in egg tempera. The aim is to help all students aspire to create icons that are both sound theologically while being aesthetically beautiful. This volume focuses on the Face of Christ, especially in the Mandolin icon, and covers all the basics of icon painting. Subsequent volumes are planned which will look at the figure and the Kyykotissa icon, the design of festal icons, backgrounds and buildings . This handbook uses dozens of precisely chosen, clear illustrations, gives precise recipes for colours and mixtures, provides step by step instructions to follow, and links directly to video demonstrations which show some of the most difficult processes close up. It puts the practical aspects of icon painting in a clear historical and theological framework, introducing the application of the timeless principles on which the aesthetics of icon painting are built. As art for the Church's Liturgy, icon painting calls for the highest aesthetic standards and this book aims to help make that achievable for the average committed student. Icon painting is presented here as a vocation, rather than a hobby or an interesting artistic technique though this handbook will be of interest to anyone drawn to the world of the Byzantine liturgy and its icons. By encouraging students to do more than simply copy good examples from the past but to understand how the medieval Christian artist understood what he or she was doing and how they put that into practice, this handbook brings the world of the Byzantine artist back to life. Icon painting is opened up as a living art form for today's Church. The author, who has theology degrees from Oxford University and Heythrop College in London, has many years of icon teaching experience, founding the Bethlehem Icon School in 2010 at the Emmanuel Greek Catholic Monastery in Bethlehem, where he continues to teach from time to time. This handbook began as handouts for his students on the Prince's School of Traditional Arts icon painting course, while that was being run at the Bethlehem Icon Centre in Palestine, and has finally emerged as a companion to the online Academy Course in Icon Painting and for members of the Arbor Vitae Icon Academy which the author established during the Covid pandemic.
Download or read book Early Christian Attitudes Toward Images written by Steven Bigham and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For all iconophiles, that is, those who accept the dogma of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, but especially the Orthodox who claim that the icon has a sacramental and mystical character, it is naturally disquieting to hear the claim that the early Christians were aniconic and iconophobic. If this claim is true, the theology and the veneration of the icon are seriously undermined. It is, therefore, natural for iconophiles to attempt to disprove the thesis according to which the early Christians had no images whatsoever (aniconic) because they believed them to be idols (iconophobic). It is equally natural for iconophiles to want to substantiate, as much as this is possible, their deep intuition that the roots of Christian iconography go back to the apostolic age. This study weakens the notion and credibility of the alleged hostility of the early Christians to non-idolatrous images, providing a more balanced evaluation of this question.
Download or read book Moving beyond Theoria toward Theosis written by Justin A. Davis and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2024-06-10 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moving Beyond Theoria Towards Theosis focuses on the telos of man as understood in Plato’s theoria, envisioned in the allegory of the cave, and early Christian reinterpretation of theoria as theosis. In his famed allegory of the cave, Plato maintains that real life exists beyond our base perceptions of reality and is found in the realm of ideas. Theoria is eternal rest in this realm and is understood as the telos of mankind. Plato’s theoria underwent change as it was reinterpreted under middle-Platonic and neo-Platonic thought. These systems incorporated a more mature idea of the divine than Plato, but still minimized the material world. This book explores how early Christianity inherited Plato’s cosmology and terminology. Theoria was also reinterpreted within the Christian context. Eventually the term was abandoned for theosis. Theosis is beyond theoria, as it includes contemplation of the forms as well as union with the source of the forms and the affirmation of the material realm. In this volume, Justin A. Davis shows how the Orthodox use of icons can be key to understanding theosis. The icon is a material object that connects to a higher reality, and ultimately toward union with the divine. Plato’s cosmology is collapsed and transfigured in union with the uncreated energy of God. Icons are the depiction of spiritual ascesis and the new telos of man, theosis.
Download or read book Icons in Time Persons in Eternity written by C.A. Tsakiridou and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-13 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Icons in Time, Persons in Eternity presents a critical, interdisciplinary examination of contemporary theological and philosophical studies of the Christian image and redefines this within the Orthodox tradition by exploring the ontological and aesthetic implications of Orthodox ascetic and mystical theology. It finds Modernist interest in the aesthetic peculiarity of icons significant, and essential for re-evaluating their relationship to non-representational art. Drawing on classical Greek art criticism, Byzantine ekphraseis and hymnography, and the theologies of St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Symeon the New Theologian and St. Gregory Palamas, the author argues that the ancient Greek concept of enargeia best conveys the expression of theophany and theosis in art. The qualities that define enargeia - inherent liveliness, expressive autonomy and self-subsisting form - are identified in exemplary Greek and Russian icons and considered in the context of the hesychastic theology that lies at the heart of Orthodox Christianity. An Orthodox aesthetics is thus outlined that recognizes the transcendent being of art and is open to dialogue with diverse pictorial and iconographic traditions. An examination of Ch’an (Zen) art theory and a comparison of icons with paintings by Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko and Marc Chagall, and by Japanese artists influenced by Zen Buddhism, reveal intriguing points of convergence and difference. The reader will find in these pages reasons to reconcile Modernism with the Christian image and Orthodox tradition with creative form in art.
Download or read book A History of God written by Karen Armstrong and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-08-10 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does God exist? How have the three dominant monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—shaped and altered the conception of God? How have these religions influenced each other? In this stunningly intelligent book, Karen Armstrong, one of Britain's foremost commentators on religious affairs, traces the history of how men and women have perceived and experienced God, from the time of Abraham to the present. The epic story begins with the Jews' gradual transformation of pagan idol worship in Babylon into true monotheism—a concept previously unknown in the world. Christianity and Islam both rose on the foundation of this revolutionary idea, but these religions refashioned 'the One God' to suit the social and political needs of their followers. From classical philosophy and medieval mysticism to the Reformation, Karen Armstrong performs the near miracle of distilling the intellectual history of monotheism into one superbly readable volume, destined to take its place as a classic. Praise for History of God “An admirable and impressive work of synthesis that will give insight and satisfaction to thousands of lay readers.”—The Washington Post Book World “A brilliantly lucid, spendidly readable book. [Karen] Armstrong has a dazzling ability: she can take a long and complex subject and reduce it to the fundamentals, without oversimplifying.”—The Sunday Times (London) “Absorbing . . . A lode of learning.”—Time “The most fascinating and learned study of the biggest wild goose chase in history—the quest for God. Karen Armstrong is a genius.”—A.N. Wilson, author of Jesus: A Life
Download or read book From Idols to Icons written by Robin M. Jensen and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-09-20 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even the briefest glance at an art museum’s holdings or an introductory history textbook demonstrates the profound influence of Christian images and art. From Idols to Icons tells the fascinating history of the dramatic shift in Christian attitudes toward sacred images from the third through the early seventh century. From attacks on the cult images of polytheism to the emergence of Christian narrative iconography to the appearance of portrait-type representations of holy figures, this book examines the primary theological critiques and defenses of holy images in light of the surviving material evidence for early Christian visual art. Against the previous assumption that fourth- and fifth-century Christians simply forgot or ignored their predecessors’ censure and reverted to more alluring pagan practices, Robin M. Jensen contends that each stage of this profound change was uniquely Christian. Through a careful consideration of the cults of saints’ remains, devotional portraits, and pilgrimages to sacred sites, Jensen shows how the Christian devotion to holy images came to be rooted in their evolving conviction that the divine was accessible in and through visible objects.
Download or read book The Meaning of Icons written by Léonide Ouspensky and published by St Vladimir's Seminary Press. This book was released on 1982 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The nature of the icon cannot be grasped by means of pure art criticism, nor by the adoption of a sentimental point of view. Its forms are based on the wisdom contained in the theological and liturgical writings of the Eastern Orthodox Church and are imtimately bound up with the experience of the contemplative life. The present work is the first of its kind to give a reliable introduction to the spiritual background of this art. The introduction into the meaning and language of the icons by Ouspensky imparts to us in an admirable way the spiritual conceptions of the Eastern Orthodox Church which are often so foreign to us, but without the knowledge of which we cannot possibly understand the world of the icon." -- Back cover.
Download or read book Eyes to See written by Mary E. Green and published by Church Publishing, Inc.. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eyes to See: The Redemptive Purpose of Icons offers the discovery of life-giving spiritual insights found through learning to read the language of religious icons. Written especially for those whose traditions have not included icons, this book introduces eight icons written (painted) by the author. Historical notes, explanation of symbolism, related scriptures for interpretation, and a reflection for each icon deepens understanding and appreciation for the ancient holy images of the Church. The book is eight chapters in length, each describing one of the eight full-color icon plates in the insert.
