PAVEL FLORENSKY’S CONCEPT OF THE ICON

Abstract

This article is an analysis of the concept of the icon as seen by Pavel Florensky, a priest, philosopher of religion, and theologian. He expressed his views on the art of icon painting in the articles The Church Ritual as a Synthesis of the Arts, Devotional Icons of St. Sergius of Radonezh, and Reverse Perspective, as well as his work Iconostasis. Florensky’s theory is of great interest for art history, contributing to it not only by highly evaluating Russian icons of the 14th and 15th centuries but also by offering a new approach to realism in art. Yet as his concept is complex, it is also controversial. Viewing the icon as a work of art and following Plato’s philosophy, Florensky believes the objective reality of the Realm of Ideas to be the basis of artistic creativity in general and icon painting in particular. According to him, the creation of art is not an artist’s subjective search for the ways of self-expression but the result of the soul’s ascent to the truth, the world of prototypes. The icon reflects divine reality and is thus realistic in nature. Highly evaluating the icon painting in the 14–15 century Russia, he believes Andrei Rublev’s Holy Trinity to be an art masterpiece. However, developing his concept, Florensky discards the term “image”: for him, the icon is merely a symbol pointing to the prototype. The artistic image is born in the artist’s soul and exists independently from the icon, and can then be born in the soul of the beholder, who is guided to the prototype by the symbol. This is how the icon, as a result of artistic creation, is reproduced in the person viewing it. Florensky underlines the importance of aesthetics in assessing an icon, for a work’s artistic perfection is inseparable from its ability to testify to the prototype, and beauty is measured with the truthfulness of this testimony. Yet by acknowledging the fact that all icons created according to the canon are of the same value, he renounces the artistic criterion and makes the masterpieces of icon painting equal to many other artworks of average quality. For Florensky, the icon is an integral part of a synthetic work of art – the church ritual – and its existence as an art phenomenon is dependent on certain conditions: if these are not met, it “dies” as art.