The Inexhaustible Resources of Church Art

Abstract

This article presents an attempt of circumstantiating the analysis of the constituent components of the synthesis of the arts in the church: from the text of the chant in its homiletical and poetical-rhetorical form to filling the text with musical formulas, to supporting these texts of the chant with various artistic images in the icons occasioned to the events of the respective texts and the perception of their color model. The hermeneutics of the constituent elements of the action provide a synergetic effect of a church synthesis which scholars starting with Father Pavel Florensky have written about. This effect provides the indispensable level of perception of church art. The material for research featured Early Russian and Byzantine chant manuscripts and published musical scores, as well as Byzantine and early Russian icons. The present study makes it possible to unveil for the sake of understanding that hidden, latent, elevated meaning which has always existed and continues to be present in essentially canonic church art which bases itself on primal secret knowledge embedded in the church tradition.

Keywords: hermeneutics, church action, synergetic effect, intonational models of the chants, color models of icons.