Museikon_1_2017

152 | Cristina Bogdan in dialogue with painter Constantin Cioc
Prosopon 1, pencil drawings on paper (February 2017).
Prosopon 2, pencil drawings on paper (February 2017).
where it came from. Practically, I felt the first moment of
mystery and of religious emotion back then, in a church.
I though the voice I heard was the voice of God himself – I
didn’t notice there was a priest officiating the service. I did
not have the image of a priest officiating a service, to me
what I heard in that church was the voice of God. Much
later, after experiencing an – let us say “un-Christian”
phase, I returned to Church and rediscovered the icon.
And since I had already been studying painting, I started
working on icons as well. Throughout my art studies, I
painted my first icons on glass and my first icons on wood,
as it was required for the painting techniques’ course. I
enjoyed it a lot. While making icons on glass, I discovered
icon calligraphy, icon writing – and then I understood that
icons were not drawn, but designated, written. Icons are
written. And maybe that was when I understood the definition
of icon as a theological writing. Once I returned to
the Church I painted icons occasionally, in several stages.
Painting the icon always remained for me an inner preoccupation.
I’ve always kept wondering how a renewal of the
icon could be made possible, but at the same – or while at
the same time I struggled to keep myself inside canon, for
I do not wish to distract anyone with the novelty I attempt
to propose. And, anyways, who possesses the measure of
Rublev anymore, for him to be able to renew an icon?
What kind of life does an iconographer need to live to be
able to renew an icon? I continuously avoided to be very
audacious. I tried to seek a rightful measure for the icon’s
renewal. I am what I am – a Christian and a painter at the
same time. Through my painting, I confess my own faith.