Byzantine Iconography Series 8: Buildings and Landscape
What you'll learn
- Students will learn some basic elements of composition in Byzantine iconography and how to draw buildings and landscapes.
Requirements
- Students should have completed Series 1-7
Description
In this series we will be studying buildings and landscape elements as well some of the basic rules of composition.
In the previous tutorials we have studied figures and have seen the importance played by rhythm in creating the sense of both movement and stability as well as harmony and unity. Now we are going to look at the environment that surrounds the figures.
In this first tutorial we will be starting off with buildings and objects. Now you might be thinking why would I need a tutorial about drawing buildings as they are so simple to draw, but buildings and objects in Byzantine iconography are not simply shapes nor do they try to portray a realistic or historical setting where the event took place. It is important to understand WHY we draw these elements in the way that we do because they play a very important role in the rhythm and movement of an icon.
Just a figure is drawn and painted in a manner that projects it off the surface into the same time and space as the viewer, the same thing applies to buildings and other objects. So what we’re going to be doing is seeing how what at first seems like simple lines and shapes are used to do this.
In the first tutorial we will study how the basic rules of composition are applied to buildings and objects and how rhythm, the transverse principle and vertical perspective are used to project the forms out towards the viewer. In the second tutorial we will see how all this applies to landscape elements like mountains, rivers and trees.
Required Materials: Pencil, paper and eraser.
Who this course is for:
- Advanced students who have completed the first 7 Series of tutorials
Instructor
![Bridget Hayes](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 64 64"%3E%3C/svg%3E){kind=avatar}
- 4.9 Instructor Rating
- 442 Reviews
- 675 Students
- 14 Courses
Hello, I'm Julia. I'm a South African born byzantine iconographer with 16 years experience. I live and studied iconography in Greece with teachers including master iconographer George Kordis. I have also studied Theology and done post-graduate studies in Liturgics at the University of Athens.
So what are these iconography tutorials about? This is not a standard weekend iconography workshop where you simply learn to trace an icon and "paint-by-numbers". It was never the tradition of the Church to make "photocopies" of old icons, but sadly this modern "tradition" is destroying the creative tradition of the Church. Every period of iconography from the Comnene to the Paleologian periods to the Cretan School has it's own style within the Byzantine system of painting and the iconographic tradition of the Church. In these tutorials you will be introduced to the Byzantine system of painting and given tools that will allow you create within the tradition of the Church.
It cannot be emphasized enough how important it is for iconographers to learn to draw before starting to paint. That is why with these tutorials we will start by building the foundation by learning how to draw before we progress to painting icons.
The tutorials have subtitles for the deaf.