Iconography & Liturgical Arts

Iconography & Liturgical Arts / St. Theodore the Studite

“Demonic in its acts and words, iconoclasm denies Christ and His personhood.”

Not one heresy that has rocked the Church is as dreadful as the heresy of iconoclasm. Demonic in its acts and words, it denies Christ and destroys His personhood. On the one hand, it foolishly claims that it is impossible to depict Christ’s bodily form. In so doing it denies the incarnate Logos; even if He did become incarnate, He cannot be depicted.
It says that He is a phantom-which is typical of the Manichean gospel. On the other hand (iconoclasm) destroys to the foundations and burns up God’s temples and all sacred objects on which are depicted the face of Christ, of the Theotokos, or any of the saints.

– St. Theodore the Studite

Featured image: In the icon studio of the St. Elizabeth Convent

Andrew Gould / Iconography & Liturgical Arts

“An incarnational faith must be manifest in a fully incarnate liturgy.”

The church has always recognized that an incarnational faith must be manifest in a fully incarnate liturgy, where the arts work together to edify all the senses…While sacred texts have the ability to explain facts and abstractions with great specificity and clarity, they are unable to impact our hearts with the sudden intensity of a tolling church bell or the astonishing beauty of an iconostasis.

– Andrew Gould, from An Icon of the Kingdom of God, pt. 1: The Integrated Expression of all the Liturgical Arts
Orthodox Arts Journal, 2012

Featured image: source

Hiero-Schemamonk Constantine Cavarnos / Iconography & Liturgical Arts

“Certain artists who seek to be original at any cost.”

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

Hiero-Schemamonk Constantine Cavarnos / Iconography & Liturgical Arts

“True iconography is opposed to the ideas that art should express the imagination or personality of the artist, or the spirit of his time.”

True iconography is opposed to the ideas that art should copy nature, or should express the imagination or personality of the artist, or the spirit of his time. Its goal is to give the most effective expression to the universal truths and values of Christian religion; to lift the contemplator to the apprehension and experience of them; to transform and sanctify him. To this end the icon painter adheres faithfully to the classical Christian tradition of sacred painting, the Byzantine, employing its consecrated archetypes and techniques, avoiding arbitrariness and improvisation, as well as all that is vague, superfluous, subjective, sensual-in general, everything which tends to keep the contemplator of art objects chained to a lower level of being. The art of authentic iconography is eminently deliberate, clear, precise, simple, objective, universal, spiritual.

– Fr. Constantine Cavarnos, hieroschemamonk, iconographer, author. Byzantine Iconography Theologia, 1972

Featured image: source

Andrew Gould / Iconography & Liturgical Arts

“A warm and motherly embrace.”

The quality of secure containment bathed in warm, mysterious light is the most important contribution of architecture to the liturgical experience. Every traditional Orthodox church shares this expression, regardless of whether it is a great cathedral or a wooden chapel. Even modest village churches were built of thick logs stepping inward to create a vault or dome-like enclosure. They provide a warm and motherly embrace that is akin to the domed stone churches of great cities. The humble logs, transfigured with paintings and hanging textiles, have become worthy icons of the jasper walls of New Jerusalem. And the quality of light, from numerous candles, gilded icons, and warm brown logs, reveals the same uncreated glory as that in the great cathedral.

– Andrew Gould, from An Icon of the Kingdom of God: The Integrated Expression of all the Liturgical Arts, Pt. 4: Architecture. Orthodox Arts Journal, 2012

Featured image: source

Andrew Gould / Iconography & Liturgical Arts

“Iconography was not contrived as an academic or mystical image-language.”

(The modern field of) iconology is talking about icons, not painting them. It is a way of deconstructing icons and reducing them to words. In the hands of iconologists, an icon is a semiotic puzzle to be taken apart, reduced to figures, colors, and props. Each component is a symbol, a stand-in for a word, and the icon can be translated into its textual meaning.
Iconology does serve a useful purpose – it is a way of introducing icons to the visually blind. It shows modern people who are not accustomed to meaningful images that there is in fact, meaning in images. Ultimately, it provides an academic framework for studying icons in a way that can be reduced to essay questions on an exam – an absolute requirement in modern universities.

It is not surprising then, that seminaries find the idea of ‘reading and writing’ icons appealing. In fact, probably most Americans find it attractive. It particularly appeals to converts from Protestantism. After all, Protestantism has always been rife with a text bias mixed with iconoclasm; if you say it’s written and not painted, then it’s not quite so much like the Catholic paintings that you always feared as a protestant. Of course, some people are attracted to Orthodoxy for more exotic reasons – the mysticism of Eastern religion, for instance. The term will appeal to them as well, because it implies gnostic secrets locked into the icons – an ancient language accessible only to the initiated.

Iconography & Liturgical Arts / St. John of Damascus

“A contentious unbeliever will maintain that we worship images in our churches.”

Possibly a contentious unbeliever will maintain that we worship images in our churches and are convicted of praying to lifeless idols. Far be it from us to do this. Faith makes Christians, and God, who cannot deceive, works miracles. We are not content with mere colored pictures. With the material picture before our eyes we see the invisible God through the visible representation, and glorify Him as if present, not as a God without reality, but as a God who is the essence of being. Nor are the saints whom we glorify fictitious. They are living with God, and their spirits being holy, they help, by the power of God, those who deserve and need their assistance.

– St. John of Damascus

Featured image: The Mar-Saba Monastery (Monastery of St. Sava the Sanctified) where St. John of Damascus served as a hieromonk, and reposed. source

Fr. Stephen Bigham / Iconography & Liturgical Arts

“Canonical iconography- a common artistic and theological treasure.”

During the first 1,000 years of its history, the Church create images, either of people or of events of salvation history, which express its theological vision. As the Church through bitter disputes formulated the verbal and conceptual language of its faith, it also developed an artistic vocabulary and language that expressed the same faith, but in colors, lines, and forms.
This historical development, this creative process, resulted in what is called canonical iconography- that is, a common artistic and theological treasure, which before the schism between the East and the West, was shared by the whole of the Christian world…It is not that the iconic tradition of the Orthodox Church has not known various “styles.” We can certainly identify different manners of making images, and we can identify their specific period and country. The description of these manners is the work of art historians. A canonical icon from the Paleologan period is not exactly the same thing as the same icon painted in Novgorod, Macedonia, Crete, or Serbia at various periods. But the Orthodox Church claims that there is a universal, canonical iconography that is expressed by each of these historical and geographical “styles.”

– Fr. Steven Bigham, from “The Icon: Sign of Unity or Division?” pt. 4. Orthodox Arts Journal, 2012

Featured image: In the icon studio of the St. Elizabeth Convent

Iconography & Liturgical Arts

“…as the swallow builds its nest, the bee its honeycomb…”

The Greek painter is the slave of the theologian. His work is the model for his successors, just as it is a copy of the works of his predecessors. The painter is bound by tradition as the animal is by instinct. He executes a figure as the swallow builds its nest, the bee its honeycomb. He is responsible for the execution alone, while invention and idea are the affair of his forefathers, the theologians, the Church.

– Adolphe Didron, imagining that he is being critical of the iconographic tradition, following his 1839 visit to Mt. Athos

Featured image: Monastery icon studio. source