https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=SZfdSqdKKZc
So you might ask, what does this have to do with symbolism? The name of my talk was, Symbolism in Christian Art. And what I want to get people to understand, I think this is probably one of the most important things that I’m trying to communicate to people, is that the symbolism in Christian art starts before you analyze the painting. It starts before you analyze the architecture. Because symbolism, just the word symbolism, means things that are thrown together, things that come together. And the word art actually has a similar meaning. The word art means well-fitted together. So things that are well-fitted. And we’re used to interpreting art, we look at paintings and we interpret the meaning, but we forget the main part, which is that the most important aspect of the painting is the meaning. The most important aspect of the symbolism of the art is the purpose that the object was made for. That’s the most important part. It’s before looking at the painting. What justifies its existence in space? Why is it there? Who cares for this thing to exist? That is the first key to understanding why some of us, and I think there’s still few, but it’s going to be more, where people like Kanye West have realized that the purpose of his music is way more important than anything you’re going to find in the actual song or in the actual message. And he can do it all, like I said, it’s still Kanye West music, but he’s understood that key fact. So myself, as an iconographer, as an icon carver, that is the first part of the symbolism of my work. The first aspect which brings everything together is that when I make an image, when I make a carving, I am making it for a reason, for several reasons, for a hierarchy of reasons. The first reason is for the glory of God. That’s the first reason. Second reason is I’m making it for someone. I rarely just make icons to make icons. I have someone who writes me, someone who has a real story, someone who has a real life, and they say, oh, my daughter is getting married, or we have a new priest in our parish, and I’d like to give him a gift, or my bishop is celebrating so many years, or I have a certain affection for a certain saint, and I would really like to have an icon carved by you of that saint. And so I am engaging in the life of that person. I’m making the object to enter into a community.