Can We Speak of Hesychastic Art?

Between art and Mysticism

My paper examines the problematic relationship between hesychasm, the powerful fourteenth-century Byzantine mystical movement, and the arts.  Opponents of the hesychasts accused them of iconoclasm and the key hesychastic theologians, such as Gregory Palamas, had little to say about icons and their veneration.  Nonetheless, art historians have attempted to define a hesychastic art that deploys iconographical and formal means to express ideas associated with this movement.  In this paper, I will introduce a number of theological texts that allow us to examinethegroundsupon which a notion of hesychastic art might or might not be built.