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SACRALITY OF THE ARTISTIC CREATION IN THE LIGHT OF SALVATION OR ABOUT THE ARTISTIC VIEW OF MANВ’S RESTORATION

M. Palade

Abstract

With Orthodox icons, darkness seldom occurs, and even then it is in order to emphasize some want, the want of light. Biblical scenes or characters are always bright as, according to St. Basil the Great, by approaching light, the soul itself becomes light. Darkness has come into the world as a consequence of the original sin. It does not exist in itself, since it is not part of God's creation, but lack of light. However, its presence within the created world would disturb man's view on the world at large, resulting in the confusion of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, light and darkness. Consequently, man could no longer correctly conceive of the purpose of his own work either. This is why artistic creation also lost its sacred dimension or rather acquired a sort of “lay sacredness”, as a direct consequence of egocentrism and anthropocentrism. In the aesthetically-deformed world, it is still the divine Creator Who has the task of restoring it. After man has ruined the beauty of God's work by spoiling both the image received as a gift and also the image of the world, He did not abandon His work, beginning its work of restoration, meant to restore the first beauty. Jesus Christ, Who, at the beginning of the centuries, had painted God's image in man, came at the fullness of time to restore this image and bring back to it its initial brightness. The Painter was, He Himself, Model, because it was according to His image or icon that the restoration of the image or icon in man was going to take place, unto reaching the likeness, and it was Him again Who was going to help man in this work. This study aims to reveal some aspects of the sacrality of the artistic creation in the light of salvation.

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