Quite sensibly and sensitively, if you ask me. At Veliko Tarnovo, the old capital of Bulgaria, the Church of Forty Martyrs was rebuilt during the communist era. The internal artwork looks something like this:
Given that this is a Bulgarian Orthodox church on a very sacred site, the usual iconagraphy would have been traditional and stylised, but not here. Mary and Jesus are much more down-to-earth:
By far the best are the earthy bodies, fully rounded, muscled, sensual:
Not quite the church’s tradition of desexualised bodies from the Bible and the saints …
And ordinary, hard-working people:
I’m not given to spirituality, since it is usually bullshit, but this was one of the most spititual and moving places I have been for a long time.
8 October, 2010 at 5:48 pm
i like the sharp + clean lines of the architecture. the icons look much more earthy, probably more in keeping with the traditional orthodox emphasis on incarnation than the usual 2D/stoned-looking images anyway
8 October, 2010 at 6:38 pm
But even the traditional orthodox iconography is very stylised in comparison: Jesus usually has a massive coiffe with a part down the middle. But you are right: these images unwittingly capture a much more incarnational, embodied feel.