St Cyprian Creative Union of Icon Painters

Remaining completely committed to Heritage and the main canon of sacred art, one must dare to create. Otherwise, we will not outdo divine archaeology.The main flow of life of Heritage has to include streams of our era and glorify life in all of its aspects.

-Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras

 

Our association unites young painters who work in the sphere of church art. Most of us are graduates of the Lviv National Academy of Arts, specifically from the Department of Divine Art. We develop and implement projects to paint churches, and icon complexes for iconostasis. We also work in the area of easel icon painting, stained-glass, and church canvas. The polychromy concept in churches and icons are embodied under the supervision of Oleksiy Cherednichenko. Easel icons can be created both collectively by the group and by individual painters.

The goal of our creative activity is to spread the best traditions of Ukrainian Orthodox icon painting in the Byzantine style through creative rethinking and presentation of that idea in the different artistic forms of the present. Our priority is to follow the principles of Byzantine icon painting, but not recreate masterpieces by copying them. In the sphere of monumental art, we strive to create harmonious church ensembles that unite architectural forms and interior objects with the stylistic color and structural choices of our icon painting. When developing a project for a church, we are led by the idea of its dedication and type of architecture; we try to understand the desires of the community in the depictions and icons. According to the Byzantine concept of church interior design, icons or wall-paintings must perform not a decorative or depictive function, but first of all serve as a meeting place of parishioners with the savior; they have to help penetrate the unseen world through reading the language of icon painting. The aesthetic character, color choice and rhythm of the icon must enhance the idea. The aesthetics of the object is not the goal itself, but must serve as a way to fully open the beauty of God.

The sacred art of XIV-XV centuries of countries that followed the Byzantine tradition is exemplary of our conceptual and stylistic choices. The period of the Paleological Renaissance, the development of isihazam theology, is regarded to be the golden age of icon painting. This was the epoch that gave the chance to painters and fathers of the Church to best express universal values with artistic means. This was the time of the active development of local cultural traditions of Byzantine nations and their creative reproduction of Byzantine inheritance.  Thanks to the second southern Slavic influence, Ukrainian church art absorbs both Byzantine and Balkan artistic influences. Kyiv Metropolitan Cyprian Tsamblak, who led the Church in XIV-XV centuries, actively supported this. Being the follower of Saint Gregory Palamas, and a person of high spiritual values, Saint Cyprian devoted his life to cultural and educational activity, organizing church life in the spirit of unity. According to Lyudmyla Milyayeva, Doctor of Arts and professor, he was the one who created the cultural center of a high level in Kyiv; thanks to him the masterpieces of Ukrainian art, such as the Kyiv Psalter, frescos of the castle temple of the Trinity in Lyublin, etc. appeared. That is why we named our association after Saint Cyprian.