Icons: The Fascination and the Reality

302 pp. Translated by Daniel G. Conklin. Topics include icon centers and schools, pictorial themes, special forms, artistic techniques and materials, pictorial language, etc. The reality and mystery of icons is developed here in a way that is as fascinating as it is informative. Approximately 500 illustrations show the whole spectrum of icon painting, beginning with the origins of Christian fine art and the most important historical expressions of Byzantine and Russian tradition. This book offers a broad overview of the pictorial themes and includes information about how different types of icons are produced and used. The great masterpieces and the classical pictorial types are presented here with representative examples chosen to show the historical and geographical diversity of style, material, and use in the rich tapestry of the world of icons. Many of the illustrations were photographed specifically for this work. The reader will find here a clearly outlined and exemplary selection of the rich, vast, inexhaustible world of icons. All illustrations in this impressive volume are placed as closely as possible to the text. The author is an internationally acclaimed expert on icons. He has immersed himself in the presuppositions of the world in which icons were created. Icons are indeed not as other-worldly and a historical as they might first appear--a fact that is emphasized in this work, leading to many surprising discoveries. And so the brilliantly formulated text of this extremely knowledgeable author is anything but the usual dry and dusty study of a specialist. This presentation has grown out of the whole experience of an academic life. It is inspired by the tense, often dramatic history of the world of icons, a fascinating and enigmatic world. Concise information is combined with lively stories. The details gain color and profile from unexpected places. The aesthetic focus on icons, which are also works of art, is transfigured through the depth of faith expressed in these "divine images."