07 — Beauty and the Icon
Evdokimov’s last book, L’Art de l’icône: Théologie de la beauté, treats beauty as a divine name and the icon as its theological instance — matter that has received the capacity to radiate the presence of God. Behind it stands the Dostoevskian conviction he had carried since his doctorate: that beauty will save the world, that atheism is a serious spiritual condition and not an intellectual mistake, and that in a world for which the classical proofs have gone silent the remaining evidence for God is a transfigured human face.
Tradition: Russian Orthodox (emigration)
Files
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Art of the Icon and the Theology of Beauty | Beauty as a divine name, the Palamite grounding, the icon as sacramental, reverse perspective, and why icons are unsigned |
| Dostoevsky, Atheism, and the Modern World | The 1942 thesis, Gogol et Dostoïevski, Le Christ dans la pensée russe, and Evdokimov’s reckoning with modern unbelief |
Why This Section Matters
Beauty is not decoration in Evdokimov; it is where his theology of creation, his Palamism and his anthropology converge. Because the divine energies really penetrate creation, matter can be transfigured; because matter can be transfigured, the icon is possible; because the human being is the icon of God, a saint is the final argument. This is also the point at which he is furthest from a purely defensive apologetics and closest to what he thought the twentieth century actually needed.
See Also
- 04 — Interiorized Monasticism — the holiness that beauty makes visible
- Holy Icons — the Church’s theology and practice of the icon
- Icons and Iconoclasm — the dogmatic foundation
References
- Evdokimov, Paul. L’Art de l’icône: Théologie de la beauté. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1970/1972. English: The Art of the Icon: A Theology of Beauty, trans. Steven Bigham. Redondo Beach, CA: Oakwood Publications, 1990.
- Evdokimov, Paul. Dostoïevski et le problème du mal. 1942.