NATURE – FORM OF THE SACRED, ICON, SYMBOL

Abstract

Man, in order to perceive the sacred, differentiates the environment according to his needs, preferring those places which facilitate survival or protection, endowing them with a supernaturallegitimacy, and rigorously circumscribing them. As far as the iconsare concerned, apart from the face or the story represented, adistinct role is played by nature itself. It first appears as a given andas a problem in the horizon of the European religious thoughtwithin the sources of Christian faith. The spiritual world in which man has become God’s temple is revealed to us with the help of colours, shapes and lines and of the symbolic realism - a language which is, in its own way, unique. The order and inner peace referred to by the Holy Fathers are conveyed through the peace and outer harmony of the icon, where everything is unified and driventowards supreme harmony.