ART AND THEOLOGY. The revival of icon painting in modern Greece

Today we are witnessing a renaissance in the appreciation of the icon as an artistic or devotional object, and thousands of people around the world enthusiastically attend workshops to learn the traditional techniques of its creation. However, the modern history of the icon is an unresolved issue not only due to the lack of specific research, but also due to the absence of an adequate methodological framework to address the fundamental question behind this contemporary passion: Is it possible for an ancient tradition to survive, giving rise to a poetics of the present, or is it a mirage generated by nostalgia for a better past? This book addresses with rigor and also beauty the history of iconographic art, the discovery of its plastic specificity at the beginning of the 20th century and its relationship with the emergence of the historical avant-gardes. The author addresses the need to link the theological tradition embodied by the icon with the search for meaning in today's civilization, if we want to see in the icon a plastic language capable of expressing the experience of faith of believers.

FEDERICO AGUIRRE ROMER

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