ABSTRACT
The conclusion provides the usual overview of the main themes of the book, while also considering the contemporary relevance of Florensky’s philosophical project. While the focus of the material is on Florensky’s theory of the icon, this is not a book about art history, but about religious philosophy and more concretely the Russian full unity movement. Florensky’s thought is firmly rooted in this religious-philosophical tradition, which goes back to the Slavophiles and, later, Soloviev. At the same time, it was unique to Florensky to re-sound well-known Eastern Orthodox theological ideas (such as the Palamite teaching on divine essence and energies, the doctrine of theosis, etc.) by drawing their visual implications. This approach draws bridges to contemporary debates on the “religious” and “pictorial turn.”
Florensky’s writings under consideration are, as a rule, a reaction to contemporary events: the Name-Worshipping controversy, Picasso’s paintings in Moscow, the fascination of the avant-garde with Non-Euclidean geometry, and Bolshevik cultural policy on religious art. More generally, they attack the reigning paradigm of Western philosophy, particularly Kant and, ultimately, the Enlightenment project of modernity. The solutions that Florensky offers are based on overcoming false oppositions of thought in an overreaching project of religious modernity.
