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So that was really the biggest step toward my desire to learn iconography.

In this conversation, I was fascinated to learn the difference between the icon and Western art–and they discussed this quite well. And he has also written a great many books. In this book he has a conversation with the greatest iconographer of the twentieth century, Photios Kontaglou, was not only an iconographer but also a theologian and knew a great deal not only about art but also the hymnology of the Church. He is also a theologian and prolific writer. So he hands me a book and says, “Read this and you’ll be an expert.” And sure enough, it was a small book called Byzantine Sacred Art, by a scholar whose name is Constantine Cavarnos. I wasn’t as familiar with iconography then as I am now, and I felt kind of unqualified. To make a long story short, when he did have the exhibit he wanted me to be a guest host together with a friend of his who taught at Tech. He worked for six months to put this together. And you know his style–everything he does is very elaborate, complete, and very well organized. Q: What models did you follow? Who were your mentors or chief sources of inspiration?Ī: About the mid-1960’s, Steve Rodakis had collected a large number of icons from the Orthodox community in Shreveport, and he put together a wonderful icon exhibition in the church hall. Then I kept doing more and finally I started devouring everything I could read about iconography. So finally I attempted to do an icon, and it was kind of crude initially. I would do things like this, and they turned out the best of all the things that I did. Q: What kind of work did you do before turning to Orthodox iconography?Ī: Most of the things I would do, whether it was abstract or semi-abstract, had something to do with a religious message, like the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Last Supper. And then of course, being an artist, I decided to try.

There may be some very, very subtle changes from time to time, but these subtle differences and changes have nothing to do with a changing of the Faith– really expressing the same message today as it did in the early Christian centuries. That’s why this form of art is strange to us, because it started out in early Christianity and has remained basically unchanged to the present day. Over a period of time I started to investigate and study this art of iconography, and I was fascinated that it had a tremendous sophistication and a tremendous spirituality, and that it was not the expression of an individual or of a particular time, but was really the expression of the Church, which does not change. And as I would attend church I would look at this strange form of art (or what seemed strange compared to Western art) and I was always wondering why it was so different. Byzantine art was only kind of a footnote in the History of Art. While I was being educated here as an artist, I looked on iconography as a form of art that the schools did not explain very well. My parents were very close to the Church, so we always attended services. What motivated this change of direction?A: I was born in Greece and was educated there through the seventh grade. Q: You were trained in the Western artistic tradition, and then turned to Byzantine iconography. Cassis sat down for an interview with parish council secretary Chris Michaelides, and shared the following insights on Orthodox iconography. In 2001, he was named an Archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in recognition of his contributions to the Church. Cassis’s work has been exhibited at numerous major museums his icons adorn Orthodox schools, cathedrals, and churches nationwide, including our own Saints Constantine and Helen. In addition to pursuing a career as an exhibition artist in secular and religious art, Cassis was an art teacher in the public schools for twenty-eight years, and is currently artist-in-residence at Kinkaid College Preparatory School in Houston, Texas. After coming to this country from Galaxidion, Greece, he studied art at Northwestern State University in Louisiana, graduating with honors. Diamantis Cassis is one of the foremost Byzantine iconographers currently active in the United States.