Speech at the exhibition at Vianen 2010

Distinguished visitors,

I would like to talk about the painters who populate this exhibition. In 2001 we started two classes in Amsterdam and Haarlem. Beginners from then are still there. Now there are 55 of us. Some already have some or even a lot painted before they came here. In oil and acrylic, modern work. Large formats or small. Some had already painted icons. Then mostly Russian. Still others had never painted. Hats off to Ineke and Riet.

What a fun it is to paint an icon together. You can exchange a lot, you learn from each other.

I started painting myself because the icons of Neoklis (my teacher) made a deep impression on me. That summer I dreamed of the icon colors every night. As if my subconscious kept wanting to tell me: you have seen something beautiful now!

Want to know about the painters? We hold an introductory talk in each course in which they tell a little about their motivation. I will say it a little roughly in my own words. So I can say 30% do not consider themselves religious. I come for the technique they say. As far as I'm concerned that's okay, I say, I have no problem with that at all. You are welcome. 30 % paint for spirituality. These are involved in a church and mostly Roman Catholic. 40% do experience something when painting, find spirituality interesting and they usually have a Protestant background. These 70% together, by the way, also find the technique valuable in doing. Arthistorically, everyone also finds the icons interesting.

There are 4 Orthodox, including me, 1 Old Catholic and 1 Freemason.

We have a lot of people there with finished careers. Many coming from education, fewer from healthcare, quite a few people with office jobs, 1 director, 3 theologians, including me, 3 therapists, a house painter, 4 or 5 visual artists, 2 graphic designers, a school principal. The wait is for another full-time icon painter. Who dares?

Another topic:

Is it copying?

(Sigh)

I hear it so often, especially from people who paint Russian. Father Anton of the Amsterdam Russian Church, who paints himself, the priest André Gouzes in Sylvanès, France, Marcel Watté, Belgium, Bernard Frinking, France. “Boy, go design something yourself!” As if it is a pity to paint icons as they have always been painted. Bernard says: 1) You must be humble, and therefore it must then surely come entirely from your own inspiration. That's how the ugliest icons come into the world, but that certainly doesn't matter. Neoklis said: don't go designing, because in Greece, for example, there is only one who can do it. 2) it is pride of you, it is flaunting other people's feathers.

Well dear Russian painters and icon experts, .... Aren't the Russian painters' books of Stroganov and Ushakov full of drawings? Does not the painting book of Dionysius of Fourna, from which people do like to quote the icon prayer, include the making of a transparent drawing based on an old icon? Since Dionysius' book is a compilation of manuals from the 12th century onward, one can rightly call the making of the drawing an ancient icon painting custom. At Dionysius, an oil-soaked paper was placed on the icon and the outlines traced over - in this day and age, we use transparent paper on an image of an icon in a book or postcard. Really, we do nothing different from the painters of old, said the painter Ireen van Engelen ...those of the 16th century, whom we appreciate so much and whose icons we use.

This subject gets an odd end, namely, because after all, I also designed a lot myself. You can do that, but you don't have to. And self-designed icons are not substantially different from repainted icons. Everything has to look like traditional icons. New ones too.