Art for Meditation: Iconographer Philip Davydov
in Conversation with Lisa Shirk
The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity. A version of the conversation can be found in the audio interview above.
Lisa Shirk: Is there anything that you would like to share about how you grew up and how faith may or may not impact your art form?
Philip Davydov: Well, my dad is an Orthodox priest; it’s usual in the Orthodox Church that priests marry. My dad is an iconographer, so he taught me his work. After that, I graduated as an art historian and art critic, which helped me to see that iconography is one of the forms of art. It’s not just a unique thing that has never ever been part of anything else. It’s part of our universal culture, and it’s just one of the branches of the tree of art. That’s what helped me to see that there’s a huge number of different traditions included in what used to be liturgical art, or Christian art, or iconography. I think that’s what makes me slightly different from many others, because I learned this from practice and theory together. I was lucky, I think.
LS: Did you always consider yourself an artist?
PD: I’m not sure about that; it’s a difficult question. We’re all artists in some way, and I feel very sorry when I hear someone saying something like, “Oh, in my school, my first-grade teacher told me I never can do art.” Why do people do that? We all have some creative aspect of our personality, and you would never be able to say that you never could do [art.] Some people are more open to one part, or less open to the other part of creativity, but we always have something [creative] in us. We all do.
If you come to church and pray, you don’t want to be entertained, you don’t want to be distracted, you want images which could help you to keep your brain in some peaceful focus and meditation.
LS: Not everyone may know what iconography is. It’s something we’ve heard about and certainly has deep historical roots, but I would love to have you share: What is iconography? How is it distinct from other forms of Christian art?
PD: Iconography is a specific type of art that’s elaborate for a specific purpose—that’s one interesting thing to remember. Let me give an analogy from another field to illustrate the point. For example, in book illustration, there are options and a certain degree of freedom, and yet, there are requirements caused by the use of images. So, if you come to church and pray, you don’t want to be entertained, you don’t want to be distracted, you want images which could help you to keep your brain in some peaceful focus and meditation.
Russian iconography is one of the branches of Christian iconography, so again, it’s just a section of it. Russia received Christianity from Greece, inherited iconography from Greece, but around the 13th century, we can see development of some of its own style. In some aspects, it is more provincial, but that is an interesting thing about why I love iconography. It’s not about skills only. Skills are important, but it’s not only about skills. It’s about choices you make. Having a specific task, you’re producing an image, you’re thinking an image. For someone without any commission, you’re supposed to be conditioned, or you’re thinking of [iconography] as a tool for focusing, for meditation. So, you’re free within limits, which allows you to create this image. If you want this image to be something different, that means what you produce is no more an icon. So, there are hundreds of genres of different types. It can be decorative, it can be many, many other things, but not necessarily what you produce is an icon.
LS: Yes, I love that term “free with limits.” As an artist myself, I can feel sometimes when there are no limits, it’s actually more difficult to be creative and go deeper in your work, because it’s so expansive.
I saw on your website, you said the Russian Orthodoxy iconography was a specific type of training. So I’d be curious, what does that training look like? What are the mediums that you’re using? How long is that training? What was that process like for you?
PD: Being art historians and art critics, we try to analyze and perceive the images we inherited from the past, from medieval times, from the point of view of the goals or purposes the artist for using them. We try to think or understand, why would they do this choice or that choice? The choices they had allowed them to produce these, literally, peaceful images. To do that you are constrained, not to behave, but to have a specific routine or other otherwise methodology of producing an image. Because if the beholder would see something, let’s say not predictable, but consistent, the image you produce should be a consistent thing, where the person who would see it can expect consistency everywhere.
How do you achieve it? You produce a drawing. You first make sure the drawing is really good, it fits your purposes, and it can be accepted from all possible points of view – composition, placement of dynamics, different things. After that, the way you develop it… in many aspects, it’s a possibility to establish a certain unity, which should be affecting or influencing the beholder in a certain way. So you’re constructing the way the image is perceived, and this is, I think, one of the most important aspects of iconography. So you're not throwing paint onto the surface, which may sometimes happen, if you need it, but it’s more like you are building it up, like you’re writing a story, like, you’re writing a sermon for a certain audience. You’re considering specific requirements, and also the context. So that’s what is happening. In your sermon, you may sometimes use very old words, but you must have a very good reason to use them for them to stay in context. So the same here, you’re creating a context in front of which people will feel comfortable praying and staying in meditation.
LS: I love that analogy, and I love the term, “establish certain unity.” We need that.
How are you inspired to pick what iconography you want to paint? How do you come up with what your next project will be?
PD: Fortunately, we have hundreds and thousands of images inherited from the past. And you may be inspired by anything. You see some beautiful green color, you see some movement of an angel towards Mary, saying “Hail Mary,” and it can be some very elongated proportion. Or anything, it can be anything.
LS: I’ve been thinking a lot as an artist about how AI, artificial intelligence, is impacting the arts nowadays, and I love the terminology you’re using, “images inherited from the past.” I’d love to hear if you have any thoughts on that repetition aspect. You’re taking these inherited images and making them for what they need to be today and for your practice. Do you have concerns when you see how AI is being used in the arts? What are your thoughts on that?
PD: My colleagues worry about printing machines which may print directly on walls, because that’s kind of the work they used to produce, to perform. But we can only worry about it if our work is measured by how quickly we accomplish something. A machine would definitely do this better and faster, but if you approach it from the point of view of, say a writer, and we can come to a writer and say “Hi, can you write a book in four days?” And it’s possible, but will it be a good book? It’s strange that artists agree to play this game. I guess the world of production and consumption suggests this game, but if you’re trying to deal with art which supposedly is anti-consumption, where it may take you one year to accomplish some little thing, or one hour to accomplish a huge thing. So, I think it’s just out of this game.
If you start a job knowing how to accomplish it, you’re a craftsman, and you failed 100%. If you don't know how to start and how to proceed, you are an artist, and you have a chance to make it good.
And talking about AI being used by artists, so far, what I see is there are some interesting effects, rather than images, which give you a thoughtful impact. However, I guess it may be a year or five years, it will be a good moment when AI will really be competing with humans. I think the good thing could be, or what I’m dreaming of, is to see how some ancient or medieval images could be restored by AI. Currently, some old photographs are restored. Take into consideration the environment, how this could be restored, for example. I’m using AI to have my texts checked and there are certain, I would say technical, tasks which we can trust [AI], but yet, I’m not sure I can fully trust its creativity, because what I see is only failing. Let’s put it this way, when we see something produced by a human, we see the personality of the person was in a certain state of mind and soul in the moment of creation. We feel it somehow subconsciously from the way the paint was applied, from the brush strokes, from pencil strokes. With AI, it’s some plastic filling, so it kind of imitates the thing, and I’m not sure I will be always able to distinguish which is human-made and which is AI, but I have a feeling that human ones are more immediate. They are more touching the soul with what was produced if the artwork was produced sincerely, with full immersion of the artist.
LS: That’s a great point. And Rothko talks about how art has the ability to speak to existential questions, and so he’s speaking a lot about the process as well. You spoke of how iconography is created for the purpose of meditation. When you’re creating icons, do you also feel that the artist is infusing their state of mind, and their spirit as they’re working? Do you take on your practice when you’re painting icons as part of a meditative practice as well?
PD: Well, it’s a beautiful thing to say “I’m always meditating when I’m painting,” but it will not be true, because when you’re painting, you’re solving problems. You’re thinking of whether this blue is okay, this red is fine, this length of the finger is good for this particular composition. So it will not be true to say that.
However, considering the overall result, or the point at which I am now, it is important to keep things under control. That means my mission is being accomplished well. If I see part of my image crying out loudly and other ones are trying to cry as loud as the first one but competing for my attention, this means my mission has failed because it’s not working properly. So, in the process of producing the image, iconographers should always have an image already being in a state of peaceful, almost finished, conditions. You should always be satisfied with what you have. Like, okay, it’s not finished, but my current state of different parts of it is coordinated, and maybe there are some certain hierarchies which I have defined, and I’m still in the level, I’m still in the stream, it’s fine. It’s a constant process of building up, not letting one part be ahead of others.
LS: Yeah, looking for balance in the work. Do you have any experiences you’d like to share about where your prayer or spiritual practice was made richer through iconography?
PD: I can’t distinguish that, because in the process of communication, which our visual art suggests, it’s not a verbal one. It’s your inner subconscious, or maybe conscious, but a non-verbal feeling, a non-verbal sensation, which you may transmit using colors and paint, and which you may feel others transmitting to you when you see some artwork built on these principles. So when you enter some ancient or medieval church where you see some things created targeting specific goals, it is a really spiritual experience, even though I would not say, like, “Oh, in this particular moment I was praying.” No, it’s like you are touching the experience here. You’re being introduced or, like you’re seeing or you’re being the testimony of a living experience of someone who lived 800 years ago because the brushstrokes you see have a very physical, concrete impact on this person. So, we actually see how he or she just made this and put the brush away, so we feel what was the state of mind and soul of the person who produced that. This is the experience because sometimes we see brilliant things you would not be able to produce drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette, because you feel there is a full immersion and hierarchy of values, which we can never imagine being different for this particular art. It’s so elegant, so elevated and noble, you couldn’t just make it in one go. You should have studied, you should have tried many times before you do this very simplistic but very elegant thing.
LS: Have you ever had a project that was extremely challenging, or that you and Olga were working on, questioning if you would be able to actually accomplish it, whether that be because of scale and scope, or the iconography you were attempting to paint, or other factors?
Consider your surface and your tools as your best friends and co-workers. Play with the materials to know them better, and let them do the job.
PD: It’s a very good question. I only came to answer this some years ago, because when you’re learning, you feel like, “Okay, I just have to learn this and this and this, and then I’m professional. And then I can work well, and I can successfully accomplish whatever I want.” By talking to my colleagues, whom I consider good artists and serious professionals, they all say if you start a job knowing how to accomplish it, you’re a craftsman, and you failed 100%. If you don't know how to start and how to proceed, you are an artist, and you have a chance to make it good. Every project should be like what you described. It’s like what we read in Chinese sages, start every work as if you start it the first time ever, then, you’ll be attentive and careful to do it well. Otherwise, you risk relying too much on your skills and not discovering what the situation is suggesting to you.
In these last two years, I see particular importance of this total awareness, alertness. It’s not what you want to say, but what you can produce in collaboration with the surface and situation and other aspects of your process. With architecture, with other things which may impact you in this moment. So, seeing every second, everything that is happening and changing. Only when you work in this way can it work. Not implying your will, but allowing the image to evolve by itself with your help. Like a good writer, we read many times, the writer is following the character, and writer doesn’t know where the character will end up. So that’s something I’m discovering, just a wonderful part of art, only last two years unfortunately, I should have discovered it earlier. Anyway, it’s such a great thing. So, yes, it should be challenging every time.
LS: Yes, and that’s a good tip for any of our younger artists, or artists who are just starting out to develop a practice, or perhaps, as we spoke of in the beginning of our conversation, realize in adulthood, midlife, or later life, “Hey, I’m an artist, I want to take this up.” Do you have any other tips or advice you would give artists who are starting out, considering their practice anew, maybe?
PD: Yes, in short, really consider your surface and your tools as your best friends and co-workers. Play with the materials to know them better, and let them do the job. Not that you have to draw and draw and draw, but let the beauty of the material become the main charm and fascinating part of the aspect of what you’re producing. Then it will be less to do, but more powerful, expressive, and impactful.
LS: Great advice, though. We’ll all be taking those notes. Even if you’re deep into your practice, those are good notes to have.
You guys also do workshops, and so you obviously have your own practice of painting, but you’re teaching this trade and this craft to others, correct?
PD: Yes, we do…for many years. [My wife, Olga, and I] put iconography into a system, we present it as an academic way of learning. Not when you’re copying and then painting by numbers or with colors, but you’re learning how to build up certain human features, the anatomy, and other things. Then you transform them in order so that they fit the task iconography has. So you learn practical anatomy and then transform it. We teach these because we think this is the only way to creativity. Visit a museum, you’ll see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of versions of the same image, because they all did it individually. So that’s what we try to suggest, you learn how to do it, but then you’re free to do it in your way, because there are options and options.
LS: How do you feel iconography has changed over the history of time in terms of people’s awareness of it, or experience of it, expression of it? And what kind of place are we in that in time right now?
PD: I guess that iconography, like medieval types of art, Christian art, was rediscovered at the end of 19th century, beginning of the 20th century. At that time, those who spoke about it, those who tried to share information, somehow decided that it was the art of copying. You trace, you always have to take a model and reproduce it exactly, even though it’s never been like that. So they were drawing, but they were just drawing in a way different from what Renaissance artists try to present as the best and the only way of drawing.
So during the last few decades, many people learned this copying approach. While at a certain point if you’re learning the copying approach you may still be questioning yourself, what if we have an image of a new saint to be? What if we have a new circumstance? Like we have a model which is square form, but I have a long wall, and I want this composition to fit into it. How do I deal with it? So, these people come to us, and more and more I encounter people who want to know because iconography is not something that we are rigidly tied to. These are principles we should be following, but apart from that, we are free. That’s what we see, at least in the medieval time, how free they are. Unbelievable! There are some things which people in the 12th century would do, which now would not be acceptable, because of their freedom. Too much freedom for some contemporary Orthodox people, for example. Even though it was made in Greece or somewhere.
So, I would say the problem is, rather in what people see, or in how little they see, because mainly we are trained, since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we used to recognize things. We used to see a cup, a house, and we don't really see how the light is going around this house, how the blue and red are interacting on the walls of the painting or anything. So, we identify things, we read them, but we don’t actually see them and this is the difficult thing. People take the blue color out of the box and start painting, thinking that blue is always blue. Even though there are hundreds and millions of types of blue. So this is the thing, and this is an issue which I don’t know whether it can be solved on a large scale, but we’re trying to find a way to teach people to see.
LS: Yeah, you’re solving that one workshop at a time, helping us see that end. Thanks for this conversation today. We’ll also start looking at things a little bit differently, I hope.
How do people find out about your workshops, or find out about your art exhibitions that you might have? How can we learn more about your work?
PD: For workshops and online courses, we have iconography.online. And for our icons, frescoes (I am dreaming of painting frescoes one day), and other stuff, our website is sacredmurals.com.
Now we live in the Republic of Georgia, South of Russia, north of Armenia. We mainly are trying to absorb what they have, because they have a huge amount of medieval frescoes and icons in their churches and in their museums, and they already have their iconographers who are happy to produce icons for their churches. But maybe in the future, we’ll live somewhere else, and we may have some possibility to exhibit our work, so that’s in the plan.
LS: We’ll maybe need to invite you over and you can come and paint a fresco here in the Washington, D.C., area where I am. Vita Poetica is so happy to have you, hear from you, and learn from you, Philip, and to get to see more of your work on your website and hear more! Maybe you’ll meet one of our members somewhere across the world at one of your workshops. It’s fun to know that we’re all in this artist community together across the globe, and we’re just very excited about the work that you’re doing and that you embody that practice with Olga as well. So thanks so much for being with us today.
Lisa Shirk is a co-founder and board member of Vita Poetica.
