By Ekaterina Askarina.
Allegory is a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself; a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another.
This is similar to the way children play around the apple tree on the painting by Giovanni Bellini. The latter became for AES+F an inspiration source for new interpretation of the category of sacred and for exploring of the very possibility of its integration into the field of contemporary art. The cultural history of humanity has built its fundaments on studying sacred, connecting it to the origin of life and seeing it as a manifestation of a divine plan, which fills the earthly path of a man with a meaning.
Sacred allegory supposes the game of meanings, which contemporary culture considers fundamental. These meanings are forms and directions of the civilisation, products of its self-study, its views on natural, its views on a norm; they contain phobias, desires, fantasies and pudency.
