SEMANTICS OF THE ICON, REVEALED IN FRIENDSHIP: FATHER SERGIUS BULGAKOV AND SISTER IOANNA REITLENGER
DOI: 10.23951/2312-7899-2018-3-202-213
The article analyzes the formation of a Russian, Soviet artist Julia Nikolayevna Reitlinger (Sister Ioanna) as a master of icon painting. A key role in this turn of her art classes was played by a meeting with the philosopher Sergei Nikolayevich Bulgakov (Father Sergius Bulgakov), ordained in Russia in 1918. The depth and content of these relationships have undoubtedly played a huge role in their lives. And, of course, reflected in the creativity of both. Julia Reitlinger believed from the first meeting Sergius was his spiritual master. This meeting determined her path to a religious worldview and to icon. In 1935 she became a nun in the world named Sister Ioanna. It is shown that the spiritual friendship that linked them to the end of their life was expressed in the work of Sister Ioanna as the master of icon painting. The semantics of the icon embodies the idea of duality. For Bulgakov and his spiritual daughter, this idea of duality also expresses the experience of friendship as a deep spiritual union, as a reflection of the image of a friend. The entire creation of the artist Julia Reitlinger contains much of icon semantics. And the friendship with the spiritual father is also full of the riches of the palette that Sister Ioanna uses in her work. We can say that this is a unique event in their life, as a metaphorical miracle-working icon, created together by a philosopher and an artist. Here and metaphysical depth, and the idea of God, and the inverse perspective, in which the place is open to the other. And even the tragedies of their life paths symbolically repeat the depth of sadness that we see in the faces of the saints. At the same time, these are bright faces full of love, faith, hope. We can say that in these bright colors friendship with Fr. S. Bulgakov and the artist’s whole life path are realized and visually manifested.
Keywords: Julia Nikolayevna Reitlinger, Sergei Nikolayevich Bulgakov, semantics of the icon, friendship, Russian emigration, Orthodoxy
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Issue: 3, 2018
Series of issue: Issue 3
Rubric: ARTICLES
Pages: 202 — 213
Downloads: 1317