Dear Friend of the Temple Gallery, I am glad to share news about icon-related events and about our Autumn trip to Vienna.
Art Historical Weekend in Vienna 22nd - 26th October 2025
The Hapsburg imperial legacy lives on in the treasures that are housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, not least the series of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. (Bruegel was the subject of my doctoral thesis, click here to read).
Apart from its old master paintings the Kunsthistorisches Museum also houses important Roman, Greek and Egyptian antiquities and European objets de vertu such as Benvenuto Cellini's salt cellar, made for Francois I of France in 1543. It is considered the world's finest example of Renaissance goldsmith art (insured for $70m).
At the Belverdere Palace and in the Secessionist Building are paintings of the Vienna Secessionist School: Gustav Klimt, Josef Hoffman, Koloman Moser, Otto Wagner, Alphonse Mucha and others.
,
And the Leopold museum houses works by Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka and Richard Gerstl.
Near Vienna is the medieval monastery of Klosterneuberg containing Nicholas de Verdun's famous altarpiece of 1181 with its 45 panels of Mosan enamels depicting biblical scenes.
The medieval enamellist is a superb master craftsman. He is also an artist of imagination and creativity. The terrible story Cain and Abel has never been told with such force and directness.
The cost of the trip is £2,865, excluding single room surcharge. This covers airfares from London, hotel and breakfast, local transport, museum visits, dinner in the evenings. I will lecture on Bruegel and on Nicholas de Verdun. We hope for an evening at the Staatsoper, considered by many to be the greatest opera house in the world, but their Autumn programme is not announced until April. Please contact Greg Godar of ETR Tours if you might be interested greg.godar@etrtours.com. A detailed itinerary is available.
The Louvre's New Department of Byzantine and Eastern Christian Art, opens in 2027 with 12,000 artworks.
This is arguably the most important development for the study of icons and Byzantine culture in the western world since the Renaissance. Between 1200 and 1500 the art of Constantinople, and its derivatives in the Slavic and Balkan worlds, was integral to European religious culture, most notably in Italy. After the fall of Byzantium in 1453 its wonders were gradually forgotten and only rediscovered in the 1920s by such men as David Talbot-Rice and Robert Byron. The academic response has been slow and faltering though this is not true for the public who instinctively sense the essential sincerity of icons. Now, a hundred years later, the Louvre's gesture will reverberate in other institutions in the West and also in the international art market.
You might like to seeExploring the Hidden World of Iconsa short film on YouTube made at the Temple Gallery by Father Patrick van der Voorst. Fr Patrick is a priest at Westminster Cathedral and a former director of Sotheby's.
Some might also be interested to see my presentation at the Harvard Gurdjieff conference last December: Panel 4. Catherine Dada, Dick Temple, Charles Ketchum, Jon Woodson, click here to watch.
Icon Museum and Study Centre (USA) Lecture June 24th 2025
I have agreed to give the 2025 Annual Kent Dur Russell Lecture, which will be held on Tuesday, June 24th, 2025, from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM, an honour which I accept with gratitude.
Born of the Virgin Mary, Astudy in Esoteric Christianity The lecture considers Mary's cosmic status and identifies stages in her journey from human existence to her higher life in Eternity. The tradition of the Virgin Queen of Heaven long predates Christianity and manifests in various goddesses whose feminine qualities become attributes of Mary. The Byzantine epithet Theotokos, 'Bearer of God', implies celestial events on a scale we cannot fathom. All this can be inferred from a reading of the symbolism in icons and reference to apocryphal writings. Orthodox sacred imagery illustrates Mary's role in sacred tradition, her practice of contemplative prayer and her ascent to the highest levels of realisation and enlightenment.
Martin Bould, artist and icon conservator. Martin has worked with the Temple Gallery for more than 40 years. He is also a very good artist. His mysterious and atmospheric landscapes can be seen at www.martinbould.com.Other works are influenced by the Russian avante-garde of the early 20th century.
The Temple Gallery also represents Lucy Temple. see lucytemple.com. and Instagram @lucymarthatemple. Lucy trained at the Kings Foundation School of Traditional Arts and exhibits regularly in galleries and at art fairs.
One of four similar crosses, all about one metre high, this crucifix was owned by Mathilda, Abbess of Essen from 973 to her death in 1011. It is now in the Treasury of Essen Minster.
About 30 recently acquired icons will be in our next online presentation scheduled for mid-May 2025. Among them is this mysterious Christ the Blessed Silence. Known in Russia as Spas Blagoe Molchanie or 'The Saviour of the Blessed Silence' or alternatively 'The Angel of Great Counsel'. It is an example of a complex iconographic type that is also represented in Greek iconography and associated with Hesychia, the personification of silence. A good essay on this rare theme is by Alexander Grishin in Eikon, Icons of the Orthodox Christian World, Ballarat, 2014, beautifully summarised here.
We shall announce further details about our new exhibition in the next weeks. In the meantime, you are always welcome to visit us, at the gallery or online.
