If religious works such as those of the Renaissance painters cannot be called icons, much less can sentimental, arbitrary products of the imagination, simply because they happen to have a religious subject, and still less should one give the name of “icon” to the creations of certain artists who, seeking to be “original” at any cost and thoroughly “modern”, wantonly distort and dehumanize the forms of sacred personages.
– Fr. Constantine Cavarnos, hieroschemamonk, iconographer, author. Byzantine Iconography Theologia, 1972
Featured image: from the cover of one of the many books written by Fr. Constantine