Customer Reviews:
 One piece of art can mean so much to so many people August 12, 2008
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
One piece of art can mean so much to so many people. "The Rublev Trinity" is a look at a monk named Andrei Rublev. Around 1400 A.D., he painted his depiction of the holy trinity of Christianity, which has stayed in the minds of practicing Eastern Orthodox Christians for the following six centuries. With a scholarly history on iconographic traditions of the western world and the power of Rublev's painting all the way up to the modern day, "The Rublev Trinity" is highly recommended to anyone studying the strong connection that exists between art and religion.
A treaasure January 21, 2008
Jim Forest (Alkmaar Netherlands)
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
An important event in the renewal of iconography occurred in Russia in 1904. This was the year that a commission was created to restore Rublev's "Holy Trinity" icon, then nearly four hundred years old. As was the case with many old icons, over time the smoke of candles had been absorbed by the varnish, gradually hiding the brilliant image beneath the varnish.
In the centuries when no safe method existed for removing the varnish without harming the image, the cure for blackened images was the repainting of icons. Thus a similar, often cruder, image was painted over the older one. In many cases, ancient icons bear several icons layered one on top of the other.
Often a more permanent solution was to place an oklad over the icon: a relief image in metal - silver or gold - that covered everything but the faces and hands. In 1904, the restoration commission carefully removed the oklad covering the Trinity icon. Then began the slow and painstaking removal of the layers of overpainting that masked Rublev's work. It took years, but what their effort finally revealed has ever since amazed those who have been privileged to stand in front of the actual icon (now in the care of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow). The uncovering of the icon was a momentous event, doing much to inspire the return to classic iconography, and the restoration of a great many other old icons.
The author of this handsomely published book, the Benedictine monk Gabriel Bunge, has undertaken a parallel work of restoration, exploring many earlier images of the three angels who were the guests of Abraham and Sarah's hospitality by the oaks of Mamre, a story related in Genesis.
In this work of profound theological examination, the reader discovers how many centuries of meditation, biblical reflection and earlier artistic effort lie behind the icon painted by Rublev early in the 16th century.
The book is also a presentation of one of the most loved but least known Russian saints, Sergii of Radonezh. As the author writes in a chapter analyzing the Rublev image: "[The martyr and saint] Father Pavel Florensky was not completely wrong when he maintained that St. Sergii was, alongside Andrei Rublev, the true creator of [the icon]. One may even go a step further and suggest that this icon, painted in `the dwelling place of the Holy Trinity' built by Sergii, is intended to depict this mystery of the grace of the Holy Spirit... The attributes that Rublev used to make visible his interpretation are the postures and gestures of the three angels."
For anyone who seeks a deeper appreciation of icons in general, or of the Trinity icon in particular, this fine book, with its many color illustrations, is a treasure.
|
