Page 374 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Byzantine Painting through Contemporary Eyes
ing.”10 In the cited sentence Malevich adheres to an exclusive kind of apophaticism, whereas Orthodox understanding of the apophatic method of theology always presup- poses the simultaneous application of the cataphatic method. Orthodox theology always adheres to both simultaneously, while at points simply emphasising one over the other. We observe that, comparatively speaking, Malevich’s earlier cited sentence is in fact much closer to the teachings of the historical opponent of the hesychast movement, Var- laam of Calabria, than what it is to the teachings of the hesychast Gregory Palamas: this can be evidenced in our second chapter entitled The Relationship between Hesychasm and the Aesthetics of Late Byzantine Painting. Spira does not make the necessary reference to the specificities of the Hesychast Debate and, as we have already indicated, even relates Malevich’s thought precisely to certain aspects of the teachings of Gregory Palamas. However, when examined systematically in terms of their theology, Malevich’s writings agree much more with the exclusive apophaticism combined with Aristotle’s dialectical syllogism, which constitutes the basic approach of the opponent of Hesychasm, Varlaam of Calabria.11
Even still, in our view, this kind of selective and perhaps “creative” borrowing from the Byzantine theological tradition has significantly assisted Malevich in eventually finding means to re-invent modern art in respect to its formal characteristics. Thus, as can be understood from the given context, Spira rightly points out that after Malevich, on a global scale, art could not exist the way it had existed until then: “Malevich’s reali- sation of the absolute work of art was not only consummate for Russia; it was also con- summate for the European art tradition as a whole. In his hands, the language of art, through which the depths of consciousness had, for several centuries, been mediated into human experience, had become progressively refined to the point at which it was no longer necessary. It was now possible, thanks to Malevich’s instrumentality, for the depth of consciousness to be realised in itself, unlimited to personal experience and un- mediated by art.”12
Our translation of: «Έτσι, όλα τα ανθρώπινα νοήματα που οδηγούν στην έννοια του Θεού χαρακτηρίζονται από το μη-νόημα.» This is a citation from Malevich’s text entitled God is not Cast Down. See: Καζιμίρ Μάλεβιτς, Γραπτά, μετάφραση: Δημήτρης Χορόσκελης (Θεσσαλονίκη: Εκδόσεις Βάνιας, 1992), 192
11 Regarding the Hesychast Debate and the teachings of Varlaam of Calabria see also: Δημήτριος Μόσχος, Πλατω- νισμός ἤ Χριστιανισμός; Οἱ φιλοσοφικές προϋποθέσεις τοῦ Ἀντιησυχασμοῦ τοῦ Νικηφόρου Γρηγορᾶ (1293–1361) (Αθήνα: Εκδόσεις Παρουσία, 1998).
12 Andrew Spira, The Avant-Garde Icon: Russian Avant-Garde Art and the Icon Painting Tradition (Farnham: Lund Humphries, 2008), 166.
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