Saint Meinrad Will Host Lecture on Icons

St. Meinrad - Iconographer Marek Czarnecki will present a lecture on Monday, October 25, 2021, at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology, St. Meinrad, IN.

His lecture, “The Technique of Icon Painting,” will be held at St. Bede Theater at 6:30 p.m. Central Time. The lecture is free and open to the public.

To watch the livestream of the lecture, visit www.saintmeinrad.edu/events?item=12333. You can also view the livestream on Saint Meinrad’s YouTube channel, Twitter or Facebook page, as well as the Saint Meinrad Graduate Theology Facebook page.

This free lecture will explain the construction of an icon, using as a model a historical Orthodox prototype. Starting from a bare plank of wood, Czarnecki will explain the step-by-step re-creation of a historical icon.

As part of the process, colorful clays and minerals are mixed with egg yolks to make paint. Layers of colors are applied from deepest to brightest, never using shadows to create form. As the image slowly emerges, viewers witness how the process of painting an icon re-enacts its vision of a transfigured reality.   

An iconographer and artist, Czarnecki teaches and writes icons out of his liturgical arts studio, Seraphic Restorations, in Meriden, CT. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1987 from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and has exhibited his work in many American and European cities.

Czarnecki is visiting Saint Meinrad as part of a grant-funded project to create six icons for a moveable iconostasis for the seminary chapel. An iconostasis is a screen of religious paintings that separates the nave from the sanctuary in a church.

Among the honors Czarnecki has received is the National Council for Polish Culture’s Jan de Rosen Artistic Achievement Award. In 2000, he was awarded the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Award, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, to study under master iconographer Ksenia Pokrovsky. Twice he was awarded the Connecticut Commission on the Arts Painting Fellowship.

His work can be seen at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Springfield, IL, and most recently at Yale University’s St. Thomas More Chapel.

The program is made possible through a Vital Worship Grant from the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, Grand Rapids, Michigan, with funds provided by Lilly Endowment Inc.