The unchanging nature of the Icon
Art & Fear, David Bayles & Ted Orland, pg 108. “The need to make art may not stem solely from the need to express who you are, but from a need to complete a relationship with something outside yourself. As a maker of art you are custodian of issues deeper than self.”
I decided to use the icon of St. John of Damascus for the image for this post as he was the author of much of the Eastern Orthodox Church’s defense of use of Sacred iconography in its churches. St. John lived in the 8th Century, after iconography had been being created for 700 years!!! In discussing the unchanging nature of Byzantine Iconography over the past 2 millenia I want to focus on the last phrase of this quote from Art & Fear “…custodian of issues deeper than self.” I find this statement to be a profound explanation of the duty that each iconographer has when creating an icon.
For nearly 2 Millenia Icons have remained virtually unchanged in style and substance. An icon of the Theotokos painted in the 21st C will retain all of the stylistic elements of the same icon of the Theotokos which was painted in the 4th C, and of every other icon of the Theotokos of that particular type which has been painted in every century in between. Likewise, my icon of St. Paul which was painted in 1999 bears a near flawless resemblance to the recently discovered icon of St. Paul in Rome that dates to the 1st C! Even when new saints are added to the canon of saints, the style of their icons follows the form of the ancient prototypes. This is because iconographers over the centuries have for the most part, although not perfectly, taken very seriously their role as “custodians of the ancient art of iconography.” Iconographers have willingly done this, without any rules being written by the Church for them to do so, in spite of popular belief. For two thousand years iconographers have taken what was handed to us by the previous generation of iconographers, used that to create beautiful icons for the Church and the faithful and passed it on unchanged and unblemished to the next generation of icconographers for that generation to do the exact same thing with. I was once discussing this very subject with Nick, who has been painting icons for at least a decade longer than I have and he made the following point to me. Artists are by nature rebellious people who are always working to push the edge of art. Meanwhile iconographers are artists who not only do not push the edge of art, but work tirelessly to maintain the ancient deposit of the iconography out of their love of God. Nick suggested that this very fact may actually be the most profound and convincing evidence of the existence of God.
Gloria in Excelsis Deo!
