Category: Iconography

When Time Meets Eternity: A Theological Reflection on Michael Galovic’s ‘Last Judgement’

Posted on by Editor in Iconography

The monumental icon of the Last Judgement, written by Michael Galovic, is a visually commanding work containing multiple iconographic references and subsidiary scenes. It can be approached in manifold ways. I suggest that the most fruitful approach is to interpret it within its religious, scriptural, and liturgical context.

In Australia and New Zealand, we have little experience of Last Judgement scenes. If anything, our art and preaching have downplayed the apocalyptic, the judgemental, and the punitive. The mediaeval West and the Russian East produced great frescoes and icons on this theme from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. Michelangelo’s enormous fresco above the altar in the Sistine Chapel and Giotto’s fresco above the altar in the Arena Chapel are among the best-known examples today. Perhaps one reason such works are rarely produced today is the sheer scope and difficulty of their creation, which requires decades of prior experience.

Context is especially important to interpretation, and the settings of these two famous Last Judgement scenes suggest the liturgical and architectural context Galovic would have envisaged for his artwork.

Last Judgement scenes were commonly monumental images in churches, especially on entrance walls, façades, and vaults, though they also appeared in altarpieces and portable icons. Galovic appears to have conceived his monumental icon as an altarpiece. His work is 150 × 80 cm, and despite being a portable panel, it retains the monumental logic of a church wall. This helps explain why it contains so many otherwise independent iconographic subjects.

An altarpiece is a painted or sculpted work designed to stand on or behind an altar and to provide its principal visual and devotional focus. Looking at Galovic’s icon, I imagine it positioned before a congregation celebrating the Eucharist, particularly during the elevation of the host in the Eucharistic Prayer. The ecclesial Body of Christ, the congregation, stands before the priest as the priest repeats the words of Jesus, ‘This is my body’, all focusing on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Behind the host, the icon, through its recurring circular motif, echoes and interprets that presence.

The congregation would encounter the icon repeatedly within the celebration of the Eucharist. They would be drawn into its complexity and gain different insights from every encounter. The icon would be present in liturgical time, within the cycle of the church’s celebration of feasts, telling a different story in Eastertide from that told in Ordinary Time. The believer contemplating the icon would come from daily life but would be invited to contemplate eternity.

In the Lord’s Prayer, Christians pray for ‘our daily bread’ and often understand this as a petition for what we need for the day at hand. However, biblical scholars have long puzzled over the Greek word usually translated as ‘daily’ in that prayer in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke: epiousios. The interpretive difficulty is that the word is extraordinarily rare; it occurs only in these passages and in the version of the Lord’s Prayer found in the Didache.

The three major interpretations are:

  • the bread we need now;
  • the Bread of Life;
  • the bread of the Day that is coming.

Galovic’s icon can be read as an elaboration of the third interpretation. He presents visually the meaning and significance of the Day that is coming, the Day of Judgement, with particular focus on the end-time Judge.

The sun and moon were created on the fourth day of creation (Gen. 1.14–19). The prophet Isaiah describes what will happen when the Lord Yahweh delivers judgment: ‘The heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll and all their host shall wither away’ (Isa. 34.4a). The Book of Revelation takes up this imagery when the slain Lamb opens the sixth seal: ‘Then the sky disappeared as if it were a scroll being rolled up’ (Rev. 6.14a). Iconographers make this cosmic event visible by depicting angels rolling up the heavens, an element that appears in the upper-right corner of Galovic’s icon. By portraying the sun, moon, and stars on the scroll itself, Galovic connects this scene with the signs of the coming of the Son of Man. As St Luke writes:

There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. (21.25–27)

Beneath the scroll being rolled up, we see Christ coming from heaven in glory. Behind him are angels who fight on his behalf and gather his faithful from the ends of the earth.

A small Calvary scene reminds us that the sun and moon went dark at the death of the Lord (Matt. 27.45).

In the upper-left corner of the icon is the heavenly Jerusalem, with the white-robed martyrs and angels at each gate (cf. Rev. 21.10–12).

At the upper centre of the icon is a figure, also in white garments, representing God the Father depicted as the Ancient of Days, creating the universe and revealing himself through the prophets. The box at the very top may perhaps represent the Ark of the Covenant.

This imagery again refers to Old Testament prophecy and apocalyptic tradition. Daniel 7 recounts the vision of the four beasts, or four doomed kingdoms: a winged lion, a bear, a four-headed, four-winged leopard, and a terrifying fourth beast. These monstrous political powers arise from evil but will collapse before the coming of the kingdom of God. They are shown in a red circle in the lower-left portion of Galovic’s icon.

The key passage is Daniel 7.13–14:

As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.

In the Gospels, Jesus often refers to himself as the ‘Son of Man’, an enigmatic title that may initially appear modest. Yet according to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus declares:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats … (25.31–32)

The enthroned Christ appears in the great central red mandorla. The cherubim and rainbow throne are alluded to. The Lord, arrayed in gold and shining with glory, gazes out at us and all creation. The letters in the cruciform halo affirm, ‘I am who am’: the existing one, the God revealed to Moses in the burning bush, and the Son who makes known the Father, making the invisible God visible. This is Christ as the Son of Man, come in judgement of the world.

Standing beside Christ and interceding for us are his mother, the God-bearer, and John the Baptist, the Forerunner. Kneeling below them are Adam and Eve, connecting us back to creation. On twelve thrones sit the twelve apostles, with the books of the Scriptures. An angelic army stands behind them.

Below him is the Prepared Throne (Hetoimasia), occupied by the cross and the book of the Gospels. These are the criteria by which we are to be judged. This recalls the Matthew 25 text about feeding, welcoming, and visiting: when you did it, ‘You did it to me’. The criterion is astonishingly christological. Saints, patriarchs, kings, and scriptural authors stand on either side. Below the throne is the hand of God the Father, holding the balance beam on which the souls of humanity are weighed under the direction of the Archangel Michael.

Then there is the path of disintegration, linked by the ‘serpent of tribulations’. The head of the serpent bites at Adam’s heel (cf. Gen. 3.15), and the serpent winds a crooked path through the lower part of the image, coiling and looping back on itself, with its tail in the fires of hell.

In a circle on the right, as angels blow trumpets to summon all creation, the sea gives up its dead. As the Book of Revelation puts it:

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and all were judged according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire, and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. (20.12–15)

The pool of fire appears at the bottom right, with panels representing the torments of the damned. Satan, in chains, is enthroned here with Judas in his lap. Judas is identifiable by the bag of silver he holds. Damnation is as christological as is salvation. Judgement is determined by one’s relationship with Jesus. Christian art has given Judas a prominent place in hell because of what Jesus said at the Last Supper:

For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born. (Mark 14.21)

Galovic does not overemphasise hell in his Judgement scene. Heaven receives considerably greater attention. A cherub guards the gate of paradise, at which there is a queue to enter. The three holy patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are enthroned together on the left. Heaven itself is shown as an enclosed garden, with Mary, the mother of Jesus, enthroned in the centre.

She is the holiest representative of humanity; by contrast, one who might be considered among the least holy is also present. The figure with a cross to her right is the Good Thief from Calvary, of whom Jesus said, ‘This day you will be with me in paradise’ (Luke 23.43).

This concern for a merciful judgement is echoed by Galovic’s inclusion of an element from Russian legend – the milostivyi bludnik, the ‘charitable adulterer’, the naked man tied to a pillar between heaven and hell. The story comes from the Prologue, a Slavonic collection of saints’ lives and edifying readings. The entry for 12 August contains a tale concerning a wealthy man who practised remarkable generosity toward the poor but persisted unrepentantly in sexual immorality.

After the man’s sudden death, there was uncertainty about his fate. According to the story, Patriarch Germanus ordered that prayers be offered so that God might disclose what had become of him. A hermit was granted a vision:

I spent the whole night in prayer, and I saw a certain place. On the right was Paradise, filled with indescribable blessings; on the left was a lake of fire, whose flame rose as high as the clouds. And between blessed Paradise and the terrible flame, the dead man stood bound, groaning grievously. He frequently looked towards Paradise and wept bitterly. And I saw a radiant angel approach him and say: ‘Why do you groan in vain, O man? Behold, because of your almsgiving you have been delivered from torment; but because you did not abandon your shameful adultery, you have been deprived of blessed Paradise’.

Dogmatic theology allows for no eternal state other than heaven or hell, but Galovic and the Russian icon tradition challenge us to consider the mixed state of the human soul. None of us is entirely good or entirely evil. Only the Almighty’s wisdom can sort the wheat from the chaff.

The congregation that worships in the presence of this icon can draw innumerable lessons from it. Its members will be reminded of the deeds and teachings of the Son of Man and of his concern for all creation. Each time they gaze upon this icon, they might even taste eternity.

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Mervyn Duffy is the current Provincial of the New Zealand Province of the Society of Mary. Before being elected to that position, he was Dean and Lecturer in Theology at Te Kupenga Catholic Theological College in Auckland.

Leonard Brown: Painting the Celestial

Posted on by Editor in Exhibition, Iconography, Painting

The survey exhibition of the work of painter Leonard Brown is currently on exhibition at the Ipswich Art Gallery in Queensland until 14 June 2026. Curated by the distinguished art historian Sasha Grishin, this survey explores his distinctive abstract works that exemplify his interest in formal geometry and handmade mark-making. Alongside this body of work are his religious icons drawn from the Orthodox tradition. Together, they explore the work of an artist centrally concerned with Christian spirituality and transcendence.

The art of Leonard Brown is a unique phenomenon in Australian art. He is highly regarded as a painter of sublime, minimal abstract canvases, and his paintings are held in major public art collections throughout Australia, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Queensland Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Art Gallery of South Australia, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

At the same time, Leonard Brown is an accomplished icon painter following the ancient conventions and methods of Byzantine and Medieval Russian icon painting. Many of his icons are consecrated and in liturgical use in churches throughout the world, find homes in domestic environments, and are held in private and public art collections. He is also a figurative artist of repute, the winner of the Brisbane Portrait Prize (2019), and has been awarded numerous other art prizes, including The Blake Prize for Religious Art (2010).

Painting the Celestial is the first comprehensive retrospective exhibition of Leonard Brown’s work to be presented in Australia and traces the artist’s development over more than five decades. The Ipswich Art Gallery is being transformed for this exhibition to include a gold-radiating sanctuary where Leonard Brown’s icons can be sympathetically displayed. His abstract paintings are being shown in greater numbers and in more depth than ever before. To enter the world of Leonard Brown’s art is to embark on a transformative experience. Both his painted icons and abstract works can transport the viewer to a different, more spiritual plane of existence.

Leonard Brown, To annihilate all that’s made to a green thought in a green shade, 2015.

Call for Papers: Sacred Christian Art in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand

Posted on by Editor in Dance, Digital Art, Drawing, Film, Iconography, Jewellery, Multimedia, Music, News, Painting, Papercutting, Performance, Photography, Poetry, Pottery, Sculpture, Street art, Technology, Theatre

The editors of Sacrum et Decorum, a peer-reviewed international journal dedicated to the history and study of sacred art, invite submissions for a special focus on sacred Christian art in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. They welcome contributions that engage with the intersection of Christian (broadly interpreted) visual culture and the distinctive colonial, postcolonial, and multicultural contexts of the region.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Church architecture and interior decoration
  • First Nations and Māori visual traditions’ encounters with European missionary art
  • The reception and adaptation of European sacred art traditions in Australia and New Zealand
  • Religious street art
  • Individual artists, craftspeople, and workshops engaged in sacred art production
  • Stained glass, iconography, sculpture, metalwork, and devotional objects
  • Contemporary sacred art and evolving liturgical aesthetics

Sacrum et Decorum is published in both Polish and English and is indexed in DOAJ, ERIH PLUS, EBSCO, and other major academic databases. It is an open-access publication, and authors retain full copyright under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 licence.

The journal welcomes original, previously unpublished scholarly articles making a substantive contribution to the field. In addition to full research articles, shorter contributions – including reviews, source materials, and artists’ reflections on their own practice – are also invited. Submissions in English are particularly encouraged.

Full author guidelines, technical requirements, and submission information are available at the journal’s website.

A Pisgah Viewing of Michael Galovic’s Kyrie Eleison

Posted on by Editor in Exhibition, Iconography, Painting

Michael Galovic, Fallen, 2024. 80 x 150 cm.

No painting can be adjudged, can reveal its true meanings, can expose the deeper insights and sensitivities of the artist, unless one physically confronts and breathes in the paint. The message is in the medium. All that I am able to do is run my eye attentively over computer images of the successive panels of Kyrie Eleison, draw attention to one or two more obvious themes, and supplement my a priori reading of the paintings by inferences drawn from my many years of friendship with Michael Galovic.

Inspired by the unforgettable photographic images of the Twin Towers, Michael was moved to give iconographic expression to his meditations around the catastrophic event in the form of a series of eight interconnected, moving, and challenging panels. Drawing on living water from the well of Eastern Orthodox iconography, each successive panel links images of the devastated World Trade Centre to the Gospel narrative of Christ’s passion and resurrection, episode by episode. Michael’s conviction clearly was that it is only through the salvific Paschal Mystery that spiritual meaning can be ascribed to the otherwise totally meaningless incident.

But, as with Holy Scripture, one needs to delve deeper into the narrative to expose the sensus plenior, the fuller sense, that lies beneath the surface of the imagery. Unless I am much mistaken, what lies beneath the surface is a vision of “things-to-come” that Michael shares with countless Christians around the globe. To reduce this vision to its barest bones, it is that of an impending (in fact, it has actually started) worldwide catastrophic collapse of cultures and institutions, ecclesiastical as well as secular, accompanied by massive extinction of biological species, and the ravaging, or even the extreme elimination, of entire human populations. But this widely shared vision is not one of despair but of hope; not hope in the “but there is still time” with which climate scientists seem to feel it their duty, even if contrary to their convictions, to conclude their dire warnings, but hope, of faith, that a new universal order will emerge amongst a remnant humanity.

Michael Galovic, Kyrie Eleison, 2025. 170 x 80 cm.

In its Christian form, it is the conviction that the New Jerusalem will be centred on the Cosmic Christ, through whom, in the power of the Divine Breath, the Holy Spirit has drawn people to himself from the beginning of the Homo sapiens story. The eternal Logos, the Word,and the Incarnate Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, are one and the same, but the Word has come to the hearts of countless millions of seekers before the Incarnation and amongst those who have heard nothing of the gospel, even today. The cosmic Christ is the universal Christ, the saviour for all. The age of the cosmic Christ, to those who share this vision, will not be long coming.

Galovic’s Kyrie Eleison series is defined by the first and last panels, from the fall of the towers to the icon of the cosmic Christ. Each of the intervening six panels is centred on a cluster of symbols that invite the viewer to meditate on Galovic’s apocalyptic vision, first from one angle, then from another. Obviously, the symbols were selected and grouped because, for Galovic, each symbol has a particular meaning. But symbols are polysemous, and indeed frequently carry opposite connotations. This means that each panel, in its unique way, can simultaneously convey or connect with the meanings of both horror and doom, and with the promise of a new order arising from a devastated world.

But why, one might ask, does Galovic ground the whole series in the destruction of the World Trade Centre on 9/11? Galovic’s Kyrie, though he constantly refers back to 9/11, is not about 9/11 per se. He simply uses 9/11 as a type (in the biblical sense) of catastrophic events with worldwide consequences in general. He could, to take a couple of examples, equally have chosen the nuclear holocaust of the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, or the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians of Gaza, to anchor the series. The obvious answer to the question is that it was the impact, and by no means does that exclude aesthetic impact, of those unforgettable photos of the destroyed Twin Towers that gripped his attention. It was indeed those naked, silvery pinnacles of steel rising from the sea of wreckage that were to haunt Galovic and led to a series of 9/11 paintings that predate Kyrie.

Even the view from in front of a computer screen is more than sufficient to tell one that Galovic’s Kyrie Eleison is a work with a desperately urgent message for our times. In my opinion, it is both a triumph for Galovic as an iconographer and for the flexibility of the Serbian iconographic tradition, which has been his mentor since childhood, that has enabled him to interpret the apocalyptic signs of our times in a brilliant sequence of iconographic images of the unfolding heart-rendering stages of the paschal mystery.

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Guy Freeland, a lecturer at St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Theological College, Sydney, lives and works on the lands of the Dharug people.

Call for Papers: Bible and Visual Culture unit at SBL (International Meeting)

Posted on by Jason Goroncy in Conference, Culture, Digital Art, Drawing, Education, Iconography, Multimedia, Painting, Papercutting, Photography, Street art
Margaret Preston, The Expulsion, 1952. Colour stencil, gouache on thin black card with gouache hand colouring, 60.5 x 48.5 cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

We are pleased to invite you to the Bible and Visual Culture unit meeting, taking place 5–9 July 2026 in Adelaide, Australia, as part of the Society of Biblical Literature International Meeting.

The Bible and Visual Culture unit is dedicated to the critical study of how biblical texts, themes, and figures are interpreted, adapted, and reimagined through visual media—from ancient mosaics and manuscript illuminations to contemporary film, television, video games, advertising, and public art. These visual interpretations have shaped, and continue to shape, the ways biblical texts are received, interpreted, and contested within the wider cultural imagination.

The unit is intentionally interdisciplinary, drawing on art history, film and theatre studies, media studies, musicology, gender studies, trauma studies, postcolonial criticism, and more. Whether examining biblical motifs in cinema, exploring representation in public art, or analyzing the commodification of biblical imagery in advertising, it highlights the interpretive power of the visual and its capacity to illuminate aspects of biblical reception.

We warmly invite established scholars and PhD candidates to submit a proposal on any topic related to the visual reception, interpretation, or representation of biblical texts—historical or contemporary, theoretical or methodological. Presentations will be thirty minutes, including discussion.

Given our location in Adelaide, we particularly welcome papers that engage with Australian art featured in Australian galleries, museums, and public spaces. How have Australian artists interpreted biblical narratives? What role does biblical imagery play in Australia’s visual culture, from colonial-era works to contemporary Indigenous perspectives? This meeting offers a unique opportunity to explore these questions in context.

Paper proposals should be submitted here and should include your name, institutional affiliation, paper title, and an abstract of approximately 250 words. Proposals may be submitted at any time before 15 January 2026. All presenters must register for the SBL International Meeting. Further details about the Adelaide meeting are available on the SBL website.

Amanda Dillon and Jason Goroncy
Coordinators, Bible and Visual Culture Unit

Sailing Back to Byzantium: Art of Michael Galovic

Posted on by Jason Goroncy in Books, Iconography
Sailing Back to Byzantium: Art of Michael Galovic. Melbourne: Yarra and Hunter Arts Press, 2024.

This lavish, large-format publication on the work of iconographer Michael Galovic is a welcome addition to the coverage of the arts and spirituality in Australia. It is a beautiful book, an art work in itself. In around 260 pages, it surveys the work of one of Australia’s most well-known painters of icons, covering traditional themes, innovative new work, and important commissions around the country.

Born in Belgrade, Michael Galovic arrived in Australia in 1990 and set about sharing his cultural knowledge through small exhibitions and workshops. The 2006 publication Icons and Art provided a visual overview of the first 15 years of his art production. This new and more generous publication covers the next 17 years, providing an overview of this important innovator and translator of the Orthodox tradition.

The book is divided into sections covering such themes as the Annunciation, the Son of Man, Theotokos, and angels, more innovative themes such as Uluru as an icon, and more experimental ideas that explore the nature of spirituality in multicultural Australia. These are supported by 24 short writing sections that address issues of technique, history, and theological themes. These are provided by the artist as well as a range of authors from art historical or theological perspectives. This enriches the book as a wider resource in understanding the role of the icon as a source of spirituality and the role that vision has in informing spiritual responses.

What is clear is the immense skill and labour that is needed to follow this ancient tradition and to make each work come alive through a fresh illumination rather than appearing as a tired copy. Galovic is a keen student of the past and pays great respect to traditional techniques. He has, however, also allowed himself to experiment with fresh ideas and approaches and has found inspiration in a wide variety of sources, including modern art and the art of Indigenous Australians.

The extensive range of commissions has allowed him to enliven the worshipping spaces of a wide variety of churches, chapels, and schools and to renew this tradition as a lively and contemporary form of seeing faith. This book provides rich resources for understanding this tradition and for appreciating this artist and his life’s work.

The book will be launched at an event in Sydney on Sunday, 28 July, at All Saints Church Ambrose St, Hunters Hill, at 4pm. It is available from the artist through his website. It would be a great addition to a personal library, a beautiful gift, or an important resource in a school or college library.

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REV DR ROD PATTENDEN IS AN ART HISTORIAN AND THEOLOGIAN FROM AUSTRALIA. HE HAS WRITTEN WIDELY ON THE ARTS AND CREATIVITY. HE LIVES AND WORKS ON AWABAKAL LAND.

Icon Exhibition

Posted on by Jason Goroncy in Exhibition, Iconography

Can An AI Paint An Icon?

Posted on by Jason Goroncy in Digital Art, Iconography, Painting
The Severed Head of St. John the Forerunner, c. 1870s. Egg tempera on silvered and gessoed wood, 31 x 26 cm. Private collection.

There’s a timely reflection by Seung Heon Sheen over at Transpositions on the relationship between AI-generated art and iconography, with implications for how we might consider the relationship between an artist and their work more generally. It draws on relevant texts from the iconoclast controversies of the eighth and ninth centuries. Here’s a snippet of the argument in nuce:

… any ‘icon’ generated by a ML algorithm would be inherently idolatrous since the relationship between the image and the archetype would be severed. That is, although the works produced by a human iconographer and an AI ‘iconographer’ may be outwardly similar, inwardly they would be radically different due to the disparity in the process of their creation. A human iconographer faithfully contemplates and depicts the archetype; an AI abandons the archetype and merely replicates its images. And if this is so in the case of iconography, it implies a danger of idolatry in involving AI in religious art or employing it for religious purposes.

You can read the full piece here.

НАПАД

Posted on by Jason Goroncy in Iconography

Danylo Movchan is a Ukrainian artist who lives and works in Lviv. Below is a photo of an icon written by Movchan, his response to Russia’s bombing yesterday of a Ukrainian children’s hospital and maternity ward, in the city of Mariupol.

Господи помилуй.

Danylo Movchan, НАПАД (ATTACK) 9.03.2022, 2022. Size and medium unknown. Lviv, Ukraine. Artist’s collection.

‘Splendour from Above’: Icons of Angels by Michael Galovic

Posted on by Jason Goroncy in Exhibition, Iconography

I first met Michael Galovic through an icon painting workshop in the mid-1990s. His religious art not only covers a vast range of icons that draw upon his deep understanding and respect for the form from its earliest origins through to the present day but also covers contemporary work.

Michael’s most recent project has been a very challenging and self-imposed task. Its focus has been primarily on the representation of ‘the Celestial Ranks’, predominantly as shown in Orthodox art, but also with examples from late medieval, early Renaissance, and Islamic art. Each of the many wonderful images expresses what would seem almost inexpressible: non-corporeal beings made manifest. The exhibition based on this work, and which is currently on display between 9–19 March at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, Canberra, also highlights both the meaning and the beauty of the variety of portrayals, whether it be in terms of the images’ backgrounds or in such elements as the stunning array of angels’ wings. The icons in the exhibition illustrate a journey that is both geographical and through time.

My focus here, however, will be predominantly on his representation of two of the most significant and defining events in Christianity – the Annunciation and the Resurrection – as portrayed in the icon of ‘The Myrrh-bearing Women’, as well as the concept of the Trinity. Each image deepens one’s understanding of the religious art of the past and present, as well of a sense of tradition, while also expressing the perception and perspective of its creator:

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves – goes itself; myself it speaks and spells

Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.[1]

In terms of the Orthodox tradition, icons are perceived, Annemarie Weyl Carr observed, as participating in the divine:

As angels and saints are images of God, icons, in turn, are images of them and so participate in the emanation of their sanctity. The crucial synapse between divinity and created matter was bridged by the incarnation.[2]

The richness and variety of the icons is expressed through new iterations that nonetheless remain firmly grounded within the Orthodox tradition. The icons of the past were not mechanical copies of previous work. The tradition evolved not through meticulous repetition but through observing and understanding the symbolism and underpinning theology inherent in the creation of the icon. Each is also influenced by the time, background, and perception of the person making it.

To appreciate the beauty and theology of an icon is ultimately to be able to appreciate the immanence of God in creation:

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise Him.[3]

The Icons of the Annunciation

Michael Galovic, Royal Doors, 2021. Egg tempera and gold leaf on gessoed board, 95 x 60 cm. Artist’s collection. 

Michael noted that his ‘Royal Doors’, an image of the Annunciation, is a work that has been 47 years in the making. This gives some sense of the process: it takes enormous patience in feeling one’s way into the image, as well as an understanding of the level of experience and technical skill needed to do such a work justice. It is a testament to Michael’s commitment to creating an image that brings alive the moment of the Incarnation in all its vividness and freshness. There is a wonderful balance between the sense of movement in the depiction of Gabriel, conveyed by both the pose and dynamism of the contrasting highlights, and the Theotokos’ acceptance, shown in her gently-bowed head and hand gesture.

It is difficult just to convey a sense of the intricacies of the craftsmanship required in the creation of this wonderful depiction of the Archangel Gabriel and the Theotokos. It began with the painstaking application of multiple layers of gesso to the intricately-carved wooden surface and then the gilding of the entire piece. This was followed by the meticulous translation of the drawn images onto the surface, with some parts being carefully embossed or stippled, as can be seen in the exquisite halos.

The actual painting of the image with egg tempera was a further level of challenge, with each layer needing to be completely dry before the next layer was attempted – often a matter of days, rather than hours.

The impermeability of the gold also makes it an exceptionally challenging surface on which to paint. The difficulty of the challenge is underscored by Eva Haustein-Bartsch’s comment, in her description of the Royal Door in the Recklinghausen Ikonen-Museum, that ‘what is completely unusual and probably unique about this door are the images painted on it over a gold background’.[4]

Michael has created a truly outstanding depiction of the imagery frequently used on ‘Royal Doors’, bringing together many theological and technical aspects of iconography to delineate the entry to the sanctuary, considered in Orthodox theology to be ‘Heaven placed on earth’, as it contains the consecrated Eucharist, the manifestation of the New Covenant.

Michael Galovic, The Annunciation 2, 2021. Egg tempera and gold leaf on gessoed board, 35 x 45 cm. Artist’s collection. 

The second Annunciation, in a more contextualised setting, also captures the moment of the Archangel Gabriel’s first addressing Mary. There is the same sense of movement as in the ‘Royal Doors’ in the placement of the feet, with the role of messenger indicated both by the rod

being carried and the hand gesture indicating speech. Mary’s gesture here is one of enquiry – ‘“How will this be”, Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”’ (Lk 1.34)

This icon again highlights that Michael’s work, while maintaining the theology and often the form of earlier icons, by no means consists of making a mechanical copy of an earlier image! The vivid light blues on a deeper blue background sweep through from the tips of Gabriel’s wings to the sleeve of his under-gown with the same tones used in a static mode in the pillar beside Mary. This contrast is repeated in the lower part of the icon, with the rippling effect of Gabriel’s hem counterpointing the ‘stillness’ of Mary’s undergarment.

Another beautiful detail is the way in which the beam of light, with its image of the dove representing the Holy Spirit, is transparently overlaid on the red cloth. Each detail is indeed meticulously placed and adds to the viewer’s understanding and reception of the image, with the draped red cloth indicating that the scene is taking place in an interior. The colour flows through to Mary’s cushion, the thread she is holding and her ‘royal’ footwear. This image again emphasises the way in which the same image (that of the Annunciation) can both take inspiration from the past and create a new and vivid image. This is what keeps the tradition alive and relevant.

Michael Galovic, The Annunciation 3, 2022. Egg tempera and gold leaf on gessoed board, 38 x 29 cm. Artist’s collection. 

The inspiration for the third Annunciation in the series came from a faded and almost unreadable copy of an Annunciation from sixteenth-century Russia, and which had deteriorated to the point that, while the basic structures could be made out, that was about all. Michael always enjoys a challenge.

The image is also a very unusual one in that it shows darkened apertures in both the buildings and the holes in the ground, especially the fissure appearing between Mary and the Archangel. This could conceivably be highlighting the significance of Christ’s incarnation through referencing those icons of the Crucifixion where there is a dark aperture beneath the cross, into which Christ’s blood flows, signifying the redemptive nature of his death. The Crucifixion is inherent in the Annunciation.

The dark spaces dramatically highlight the wonderful luminosity that Michael has achieved in the depiction of both Gabriel and Mary. It, possibly more than any other icon in the exhibition, illustrates the concept of feeling one’s way into the image. It required a deep understanding, much thought and subsequently a painstakingly slow application of layer upon layer of semi-transparent egg and pigment washes to create the tonality that brings the image to life.

Michael Galovic, The Blue Annunciation, 2021. Egg tempera and gold leaf on gessoed board. Artist’s collection. 

The fourth Annunciation is based on a fresco with a suitably-Aegean blue providing a background against which the figures and architecture stand out vibrantly, capturing the moment of the Incarnation.

These four images exemplify both the richness and diversity of traditions over at least four centuries and the value of bringing them alive in varied and beautiful iterations in the twenty-first century. While each highlights the role of the Archangel as the servant and messenger of God, as identified by the armband, and captures the contrast between movement and stasis, the nuances in the portrayal of Gabriel and Mary and the treatment of the backgrounds, ranging from the ‘uncreated light’ of the ‘Royal Doors’ to the texture and abstraction demonstrated in the three following images, exemplify the beauty, scope, and continuing significance of Iconography.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is …[5]            

Michael Galovic, The Myrrh-bearing Women by the Tomb, 2022. Egg tempera and gold leaf on gessoed board, 45 x 35 cm. Artist’s collection. 
Michael Galovic, Angelic Exuberance, 2021. Egg tempera and gold leaf on gessoed board, 70 x 50 cm. Artist’s collection. 

From the Annunciation to the Resurrection

Gabriel’s role as messenger is also highlighted in the icon of ‘The Myrrh-Bearing Women by the Tomb’, a diaphanously-rendered image of the women visiting Christ’s tomb. The delicacy and aptness of the detail, such as the fruitfulness of the trees, illustrates the richness in the variety of the use of imagery in the context of the Resurrection.

‘Angelic Exuberance’ is another vivid expression of the Resurrection – a dynamic and powerful iteration of a golden Archangel Gabriel that captures the light and joy of the event in a contemporary image that also evokes a continuing tradition: that of the White Angel, which is a detail of one of the best-known frescoes in Serbian culture, situated in the Mileševa Monastery.

Michael Galovic, The Assembly of Angels, 2021. Egg tempera and gold leaf on gessoed board, 45 x 35 cm. Artist’s collection. 

‘The Assembly of Angels’ also includes the Archangel Raphael, whose name means ‘God has healed’. In conjunction with the image of Christ it highlights, for me, the nature of redemption through the Incarnation. The Christ Child is framed by an intricate rainbow-like aureole or medallion. The golden brightness in the central band of the medallion gives a wonderful vividness and focus to the work. This icon, in conjunction with its vibrancy highlighted through the angels’ garments and royal footwear, nonetheless seems to be set beyond time with a neutral background that portrays the figures as if floating in space. This feeling of weightlessness is enhanced by the folded position of the wings.

Michael Galovic, The Holy Trinity, 2022. Egg tempera and gold leaf on gessoed board, 38 x 29 cm. Artist’s collection. 

It seems fitting that the final image considered should be that of ‘The Holy Trinity’, which radiates calmness and certainty, as well as embodying a significant aspect of the development of portrayals of the Trinity. The process of the ‘three angels’ form for representing the Trinity began with icons of the hospitality of Abraham, which illustrated the visit of the three angels, in human guise, to Abraham.

This is a beautiful and elegant composition, based on a work by arguably the best Serbian iconographer – Zograf Longin. It is an icon that expresses the tripartite nature of God as expressed in the New Testament while highlighting the continued relevance and significance of the Old. Michael has dedicated a year to the completion of this project – one that needed fifty years practice and deepening of understanding for its making. He has brought alive the beauty and theology of differing traditions and forms in a way that is truly breathtaking.

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Kerrie Magee has an academic background in medieval studies and education. Her interest in, and respect for, icons began in her mid teens and has continued ever since. She has been painting under Michael Galovic’s tuition for over 20 years. She has worked in teaching and gifted education. She lives on Wallumettagal Country.
Michael Galovic is one of Australia’s leading icon painters and has been commissioned by churches and individuals around Australia to celebrate the tradition of holy pictures in new and dynamic ways. Galovic trained at the Belgrade Academy of Arts as a contemporary artist while also learning the many technical steps of using egg temperas and gold leaf, required by the careful process of preparing an icon. He arrived in Australia in 1990 and has since that time had many solo exhibitions in Australia and overseas including in Europe and the USA. While continuing the tradition of iconography he has also extended his approach to include insights from the Australian landscape, indigenous spirituality and more universal depictions of the presence of God in creation. He is a careful technician able to enliven the demanding requirements of the tradition while also offering visual innovations that explore the cultural convergence required of a multi-cultural Australia. His work is always visually rich, finely detailed with a great depth of colour and form. A skilled and insightful artist exploring the spiritual through his art. (Dr Rod Pattenden). Michael lives and works on the land of the Darkinjung people.

[1] Gerald Manley Hopkins, ‘As Kingfishers Catch Fire’.

[2] Annemarie Weyl Carr, ‘How Icons Look’, in Imprinting the Divine: Byzantine and Russian Icons from the Menil Collection (Houston: Menil Collection, 2011), 23.

[3] Gerald Manley Hopkins, ‘Pied Beauty’.

[4] Eva Haustein-Bartsch, Icons (Hong Kong: Taschen, 2008), 62.

[5] T. S. Eliot, ‘Burnt Norton’.