The End of Symbolism

This Sunday, the last Sunday in the Epiphany season, is focused on Jesus' Transfiguration, which provides us with a vision with the glorified Christ before entering Lent. Here are two videos which explore the theological implications of the Feast, with special attention to its depictions in art and iconography.

This video records a discussion from the Princeton Scala Foundation conference that took place in April 2023 with the title, “The Transfiguration: Glory and Grace in the World”. In it, Princeton's Margarita Mooney Clayton sits down with icon carver Jonathan Pageau and iconographer and author Aidan Hart to discuss the Transfiguration of Christ, how God's glory fills the world, and how the ultimate goal of the spiritual life is encountering God face to face.

In this second video from the Visual Commentary on Scripture Project, art historian Jennifer Sliwka and theologian Ben Quash discuss this New Testament event through three visual artworks: a fifteenth-century icon by Theophanes the Greek, which shows the “uncreated light” revealed to Peter, James, and John on Mount Tabor; a fresco by Fra Angelico from the wall of a friar’s cell in Florence, where Jesus’s pose foreshadows his suffering on the cross; and a contemporary light installation by the seminary-educated American artist Dan Flavin, comprising fluorescent light tubes in the shape of a mandorla.