Specifics of the Sinai school of icon painting: actualization of spiritual and aesthetic experience

The purpose of the article is to show the Sinai Monastery as a single complex, a living organism, in which history, art, and ancient monastic tradition inextricably coexist to this day. Founded in the 6th century, the monastery managed to preserve through the centuries this synthesis, characteristic of the heyday of Byzantium, but practically lost in the East after the Muslim invasion. The article describes the history of the monastery, describes its sights, such as ancient Christian icons and the famous mosaic of the Transfiguration. The authors examine the influence of the Fayum portrait on the 6-7th century iconography, style peculiarities, colors and techniques of icon encaustic during this period, when iconographic canon was being developed and established. The article also examines the transition from encaustic technique to tempera painting in the context of changing spiritual and aesthetic nature of creativity.