What’s An Icon?

The word “icon” is derived from the Greek word “eikon” meaning likeness or image.  Icons are thought to be an adaptation of the ancient Egyptian Fayum portraits painted to remember the dead, a tradition also adopted by the Romans. Christian icons also memorialize the dead, however, they focus on transcended individuals and holy events to remind Christians of their eschatological destiny.

While we typically refer to icons as portraits of holy figures painted on wood panels in encaustic or egg tempera, the Byzantines used the term more loosely to include other art forms such as mosaic, fabric, fresco wall paintings, carvings, etc., as indicated in this statement by Church authorities at the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Council of Nicaea II) in 787:

Holy icons – made of colors, pebbles, or any other material that is fit – may be set in the holy churches of God, on holy utensils and vestments, on walls and boards, in houses and in streets.  These may be icons of our Lord and God the Savior Jesus Christ, or of our are Lady the holy Theotokos, or of honorable angels, or oaf any saint or holy man.

Following the iconoclast controversy, a meeting of the council in 843 further codified the role of icons including devotional practices associated with icons.  For example, Christians should bow before and kiss icons, light candles and lamps, and burn incense before them.  All these acts were intended to pass veneration through the icon to the holy figure represented.

Icons as Christian Catechism

Christian Icons were readable, illustrated Biblical texts and served to teach theology in the church since most people in the Byzantine world were not literate. For them, pictures served as the visual Gospel, or visible word of God.  A defined canon of symbolism and color developed to differentiate saints and their hagiography and convey events in a universally recognizable visual language, repeated for many centuries to ensure the message was consistent and unambiguous.

Beyond serving as an instructional method, the icon represented eschatological man, offering the faithful an intercessory instrument to guide their prayers. Today, in the Catholic and Orthodox Church, only a canonized person in their transcended state is depicted in an icon.

Icon Not Idol

The reason an icon is not an idol is credited to the arguments made by St. John of the Damascus and Theodore the Studite in the eighth century, influencing the Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787 (Second Council of Nicaea) and making it possible for icons to be made and used liturgically.  The rationale can be summarized in this quote by St. John of Damascus,

“The invisible things of God have been made visible.”

John of Damascus (ca. 676—749) Advocates the Use of Icons

“The whole earth is a living icon of the face of God.  …I do not worship matter.  I worship the Creator of matter who became matter for my sake, who willed to take His abode in matter, who worked out my salvation through matter.  Never will I cease honoring the matter which wrought my salvation!  I honor it, but not as God.  Because of this, I salute all remaining matter with reverence because God has filled it with reverence, because God has filled it with his grace and power.  Through it, my salvation has come to me.”

Because God became incarnate and was seen as a human being on Earth, we are able to depict Him in icons as the invisible became visible for our sake.

Visio Divina

Beyond their historic instructional value, Icons are painted prayers – a form of visio divina or window to heaven.  Icons are painted in reverse perspective, not because the Byzantines didn’t understand how to render perspective, but because the icon’s objective is to envelop the viewer to invite them into a conversation or prayer, rather than lead their eyes to a vanishing point at a distance we can never reach, as in Western art.  Not only did Byzantine iconographers understand perspective, they employed geometry positioning/placement and scaling techniques refined by the Greeks, and Egyptians.  Some say this all revealing “exploded diagram” perspective is man’s depiction of God’s view.

Convey the Truth

Unlike today’s view of art, the principal task of the icon painter is not to make something new that mystifies the beholder and leaves them perplexed.  New iconographic types – icons manifesting for the first time – are relatively rare.  The icon painter takes part in the task of “keeping the good thing committed to us” or as St. Paul says to Timothy, “Guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us,” (2 Tim 1.14) holding fast the traditions and proclamations so not as to change the language but instead find ways to give them expression to be accessible to others.  Therein lies opportunity for the iconographer’s creativity.

The Classical Iconography Institute adheres to iconographic canons, staying true to liturgical intention and historic methods to preserve this ancient artform of the Christian East and West.