Prosopon School of Iconology Exhibit Opens at Princeton Seminary’s Erdman Art Gallery February 26
—Exhibit titled “In the Image and Likeness: Icons by Students and Masters of the Prosopon School of Iconology” will run through April 6—

Princeton, NJ, January 18, 2007–An exhibition titled “In the Image and Likeness: Icons by Students and Masters of the Prosopon School of Iconology” will open at Princeton Theological Seminary’s Erdman Art Gallery on Monday, February 26 and continue through Friday, April 6. The exhibit is free and open to the public.   

Master iconographer Vladislav Andrejev, who was born in 1938 in St. Petersburg, Russia, founded the Prosopon School of Iconology. After receiving a formal education in fine art, he became interested in religious art, which was impossible to express openly during the Soviet regime. Searching for a deeper meaning in art and life, he traveled alone in parts of the Russian wilderness, and studied icon and fresco painting with a monk icon-writer. Andrejev emigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union in 1980 and now lives in New York State. He has “written” many icons, which can be seen in churches and homes throughout the United States and the world, and has been teaching iconography in North America for more than fifteen years.            

Iconography studies the identification, description, and interpretation of the content of images and indicates the use of symbols in a painting to make clear the importance of what it depicts. Icons are used by many religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity.    

The Prosopon School has introduced scores of students to the ancient art of iconography at workshops held around the country, including an annual workshop each summer since 1996 at Trinity Episcopal Church in Princeton. The icons included in the Seminary’s group exhibition were created by the hands of these students, “through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to the Glory of God.”

The word icon, the school explains, comes from the Greek word eikon, which means image—“‘As God created humankind in His image and likeness’ (Genesis 1:26), the iconographer seeks to reveal God’s image through the spiritual discipline of iconography. Icons are not works of art to look at, but windows to look through for a glimpse of the eternal.”

In conjunction with the art exhibit, a lecture titled “Icons: Painting as a Performance Art” will be given by Gordon Graham, Henry Luce III Professor of Philosophy and the Arts at Princeton Seminary, on Friday, March 2 at 4:00 p.m. in the Cooper Conference Room at Erdman Hall. A reception will immediately follow the lecture from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. in the Erdman Art Gallery. Both the lecture and the reception are free and open to the public.

The Erdman Art Gallery is located in Erdman Hall, 20 Library Place, at the Center of Continuing Education at Princeton Theological Seminary. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Sunday, 2:30 to 9:00 p.m. For more information, contact Mary Grace Royal at 609.497.7995 or visit www.ptsem.edu. For more information about the Prosopon School of Iconology, visit www.prosoponschool.org.