Holy Icon

"Grushenkа's Maid", acrylic on canvas, by Bishop Maxim, 2021.

I don't know how to portray a maid, a character who entered the paintings "like Pilate in the Faith". But the painter Maxim conveys her world not only with her clothes and characteristic scarf and simple work clothes but also with her eyes, mouth, and eyebrows. To understand a person's character, it is important to consider the eyes, together with the eyebrows and mouth. I don't know how the painter managed to crystallize in her eyes the expression of a girl who works, listens, works, and suffers in calm. The lips also contribute to that, as if asking the question: why am I enduring all this? The maid has a lay expression, but also a blessed expressive activity of the anatomical elements of the character. This picture is so convincing that we think that the girl seemed to have just finished cleaning with rags, put her hands on her hips, and walked toward us. From the painter's point of view, we ask how this painter bypasses the mere stylistic expression of the painted character and with free hands shows a wide forehead and eyes, and a strong neck which represents a girl who has matured and strengthened through work and suffering, so she is now ready to endure hard days. The way in which the painter painted this girl serves as a halo that crowns her character. (Fr Stamatis Skliris)