Page 5 - Monograph Max

Bishop Maksim has entered the space of pro- found art. He is authentic and has self-confi- dence and should no longer follow anyone except his instinct. One can see that he is constantly evolving and that, after his first exhibition in Athens in 2021, a series of his new exhibitions followed.
The manner in which he places the expressive characters in their relative immobility reveals their internal movement, like in The Brothers Karamazov.
Almost all his shining figures emerge from a dark background that symbolizes the existential night and void. The painting attempts to apply the tech- nique of forming the subject through several layered chromatic sequences, from relatively dark layers to successively lighter ones. It could be described as overpainting rather than the more traditional ap- proach of defining the composition with the under- painting. By painting the light rather than the shad- ow, the lines of the subject become visible from the inside. The warm and dark outline of the figure re- mains equal to the background. All this leads to the application of the final bright accents.
The original attitude and direction of the details of the physiognomy of the characters from the latest works of Bishop Maxim give a particular breath and stand out from his previous works. He is careful not to overextend his colors, which would weaken the drawing line, which speaks for itself and is recogniz- able from a distance.
Bishop Maxim has found remarkable and cre- ative ways of relating Byzantine art to the culture of our times.
The work of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky is like a submarine that dives into the abyss of the hu- man soul and photographs its labyrinthine land- scapes in order to present them before our eyes as a realistic picture of a mysterious existence, which, as long as it exists, fights against non-existence. For this reason, all the works of Bishop Maxim have a common characteristic: a dark background. Perhaps there was no better solution than that because it re- flects the abysses of existence in which unusual landscapes are hidden. Let’s start with those land- scapes by commenting on individual pictures.
Bishop Maxim approaches Dostoyevsky and his heroes in the following way. He observes the charac- ter of Dostoyevsky and begins to paint him. We all know about the famous portrait of the painter Perov and the touching look of Dostoyevsky. The bishop takes that portrait and paints those eyes, but because of his psychic fullness and tenderness, it’s as if he is showering it with a gentle fragrance. The portrait crystallizes the view of the long-suffering but bless- ed Dostoevsky. When I saw him and looked at his eyes and then his “suffering” coat, I said: that man has been through the storm, and his eyes have a sweetness that says: “Thank God, we are saved!” There is no other portrait of Dostoevsky that has an
Foreword
Fr. Stamatis Skliris
5