Some Notes on Icons

Icons are painted images of Our Lord, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of other saints, and of events from the life of Christ and of other mysteries of our faith. They are painted on a wood panel. No oil paints are used, but what are called tempera colours: natural colours powders that are mixed with the yolk of an egg, which serves as a ligament and makes the colours richer, warmer and transparent.

The painter is not working in his own name, but in the name of the Church. There is no signature on the icon - God is the artist. Icon painting in the Eastern Church was never merely an art form. To be worthy of the task the ancient icon painters prayed and fasted for days before taking up their brush. Only then could they communicate the Divine through their image-making.

Colours. The painter cannot just choose a colour that pleases him. Red and purple symbolise divine nature, blue human nature, green creation, gold the glowing of the Holy Spirit. When we look at an icon of Christ we see that his inner garment is red, whilst the outer one is blue. With the icon of the Mother of God the opposite is shown.

In many icons it appears that the perspective e.g. of buildings, etc. is in reverse. This is to indicate that the focal point is at the front of the icon, or even at the person looking at it.

For Eastern Christians, the person represented on the icon is considered to be actually present in some spiritual way in the icon, which is regarded as a sacramental. When an Orthodox Christian prays or meditates before an icon, they are aware that it is not so much the viewer who looks at the icon but Christ, represented in the icon, who looks at the viewer.

• The second Council of Nicea (787) says: "The more frequently one contemplates the pictorial representations, the more will he be led to remember the original subject, to be drawn to it and inclined to give it respectful veneration which, however, is not true adoration which, according to our faith, is due to God alone. The honour given to the image goes to the original model".
• Denis the Areopagite: "I would that thy icon, Mother of God, should be reflected always in the mirror of my heart and keep it pure to the end of the world. May it raise up those who are bowed down to earth and may it give hope to those who look upon it and imitate the eternal model of beauty".
• Gregory of Nyssa: "The person who contemplates the beauty of the image also achieves knowledge of the original model".
• Leontius of Naples: "I pay homage to the icon of God and not of course to the wood and the colours. However, in so far as it is endowed with the inanimate representation of Christ it is my belief that through it I come to possess him and to honour him".
• Germanus of Constantinople: "By means of an icon we portray what Christ looks like in the flesh, and we attribute reverence and honour to an icon by bowing down before it. For it is by means of the icon that we are reminded of his life-giving and inexpressible incarnation".
• "In the icon the body is simply the support of the face the face but a setting for the gaze." (Old Christian saying).

 The Manual of Painting of Mount Athos teaches artists how to represent the hand of Christ: "When you portray the hand in blessing, do not join the three fingers together, but bend the thumb towards the fourth finger, so that the second, the index finger, remains straight and the third a little curved to form the name of Jesus. IC. In fact, the second finger indicates an I (iota) and the third forms a C (sigma). The thumb will be crossed with the fourth finger, and the fifth will be in its turn a little curved, to form the name of Christ, XC; in fact the crossing of the thumb and the fourth finger form the X (chi) and the little finger a C (sigma). Thus, through the Creator's divine providence, the fingers of a person's hand, whatever their length, are so made as to be able to represent the name of Christ".

The icon is a painted image of what we believe, of theology, of the mysteries that are celebrated in the Eucharist and other sacraments, and of what we hear in God's word, the Bible. When an Orthodox Christian visits a church in between services and venerates and prays before the icons, he finds back in the icons something of what was celebrated and read during the services. The icons can serve in this way as a link between the public prayer of the Church, of the liturgy. and the private prayer of the individual. Private prayer flows from liturgical prayer and leads back to it. The icon is not a means to evoke pious feelings, as some Western art is. It is much more profound -it helps us to enter into the mysteries of our religion. Essentially an icon is beyond time, beyond place, beyond artistic taste.

In the icons it is not so much the historical facts that matter most, but the mysteries of salvation, not what happened once, but what is eternal reality. It is not so much the historical Christ, the Jesus of Nazareth, whom we find in the icons, but the risen Christ, as he is now, and at the same time present in the Church and in each one of us by the Holy Spirit.

The icons remind us constantly of the fact that God has become man in Jesus Christ, that God has now a human face as well, and that he is very near to us. Although we can no longer see now the features of Our Lord, we believe that he continues to live in every person baptised through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore the most beautiful icon will always be the face of our brother or sister in Christ, the person we have to deal with every day, who is created like us according to the image and likeness of God. May the icons also help us to discover Christ's face in others. "If you do not find God in every person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further." (Mahatma Ghandi)

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