Icon, All-Unity and Concreteness Review on: Antonova, K. Visual Thought in Russian Religious Philosophy. Pavel Florensky’s Theory of the Icon. New York: Routledge, 2020. 100 p.

The review is dedicated to K. Antonova’s monograph “Visual Thought in Russian Religious Phi­losophy: Pavel Florensky’s Theory of the Icon”. The work is presented as an attempt to reinter­pret Pavel Florensky’s legacy through the lens of contemporary visual and post-secular studies. The author has undertaken significant scholarly effort in drawing on a wide range of Pavel Flo­rensky’s writings, including both well-known texts and those that have received less attention from scholars. The book explores the theological and visual aspects of the icon, with Antonova’s attempt to place Florensky’s philosophy in the broader context of modernism being positively assessed. Particularly, she draws compelling parallels between Pavel Florensky’s theory of the icon and avant-garde painting. At the same time, the review highlights a number of short­comings in the book. The key concept of “vseedinstvo” (full unity) is not sufficiently clarified, the idea of “concrete metaphysics” is not fully developed, and some of the most significant ele­ments of Florensky’s system remain underdeveloped. Additionally, the lack of engagement with significant Russian-language scholarship weakens the scholarly foundation of the work. Specific criticism is directed towards the main conclusion, which claims that Florensky’s thought can be productively applied within the framework of contemporary post-secular discourse, but this claim is insufficiently supported. Despite these limitations, however, Antonova’s work is a sig­nificant and ambitious attempt to understand Florensky from an interdisciplinary perspective. It can serve as a foundation for further philosophical, theological, and artistic inquiry.