Page 356 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Byzantine Painting through Contemporary Eyes
However, at first glance it may seem that in the paintings of the Rothko Chapel in Huston, Rothko applied this apophatic method one-sidedly, solely as a method of nega- tion or abstraction, much in the way Mystical Theology has historically been miscon- strued in the West, whereas, as explained in our previous chapter, in the Orthodox Church the apophatic (negating) always simultaneously implies the cataphatic (affirm- ing) methodology. For example, when in reference to the divine the term intangible (ἀνέγγικτο) is applied it means that the divine cannot be touched, which is the apophat- ic approach, but it also affirms that the divine is intangible and untouchable, which con- stitutes a cataphatic approach. The negation and affirmation are implied simultaneously by Dionysius, which is why when properly understood, his teaching does not lead to anti-iconic or iconoclast results. In his work at the Chapel in Huston, comparatively speaking, at first glance it could seem that Rothko adheres more to what constitutes the Western interpretation of the apophatic method, which entails solely a process of suc- cessive negation or abstraction. However, like his other classic works discussed earlier in this chapter, Rothko’s paintings at the Chapel in Huston are far from iconoclast and are very much like abstract icons, precisely because a more careful consideration allows us to observe them as simultaneously apophatic (negating) and cataphatic (affirming). They also do indeed entail a dimmed embodied light. In this context, the reader is invited to read the fifth and last chapter of Mystical Theology in consecutive segments, as they are included beneath each of the successive images of our last visual demonstration (im- ages 60–70):
“That it that is the pre-eminent Cause of all things intelligibly perceived is not itself any of those things.
Again, ascending yet higher, we maintain that it is neither soul nor intellect; nor has it imagination, opinion, reason or understanding; nor can it be expressed or conceived, since it is neither number nor order; nor greatness nor smallness; nor equality nor ine- quality; nor similarity nor dissimilarity; neither is it standing, nor moving, nor at rest; neither has it power nor is power, nor is light; neither does it live nor is it life; neither is it essence, nor eternity nor time; nor is it subject to intelligible contact; nor is it science nor truth, nor kingship nor wisdom; neither one nor oneness, nor godhead nor good- ness; nor is it spirit according to our understanding, nor filiation, nor paternity; nor an- ything else known to us or to any other beings of the things that are or the things that are not; neither does anything that is know it as it is; nor does it know existing things according to existing knowledge; neither can the reason attain to it, nor name it, nor know it; neither is it darkness nor light, nor the false nor the true; nor can any affirma- tion or negation be applied to it, for although we may affirm or deny the things below it,
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