Starets Zosima
"Starets Zosima", acrylic on cotton fabric, 2021, Konstantinos Kougioumtzis
The painting depicts Starets Zosima from Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov. “Love all creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand within it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.” This “divine mystery” of which Starets Zosima speaks is precisely the interdependence, the reciprocal coinherence, of all created things in God. Illustrated in the Byzantine art style.