The Light of the World

It is clear, on confronting Kordis' paintings, that color is fundamental to his art. He loves color, and his technique of mixing a spectrum of hues from just three or four pigments produces effects akin to the tender, tertiary tones that characterize the most sophisticated phases of Byzantine art. But color is not just effect; it is foundational. It fills the picture surface with a spatially indeterminate but visually responsive ground as alive the gold-ground icons of the past. Against this, the representational forms, too, are all color-as Kordis says, "Byzantine forms are color; they don't just have color." Byzantine viewers understood this, as is seen in the words of Nikolaos of Andida that: "...there is a third confirmation that [the things which are accomplished in the Liturgy] also represent the whole of His saving coming and economy for us... What is it? It is the erection of the holy images by means of colors."

Colors are the substance of images. Because the colors are frequently highlighted, art historians have said that Byzantium uses light as color.9 But light modifies form; it is color that establishes it, from the proplasmos up.

(Annemarie Weyl Carr, from the publisher)