Posted by Al
on 11/2/2009, 2:39 pm, in reply to "Re: Orthodox Christians View Icons as “Windows to Heaven”"
Father-
Yes, there are books in print that address iconography, but I doubt any of them rise to the level of "rules and regulations" within the practice of the Church. Typically, they summarize the traditions and techniques that have characterized iconography over the ages. That they are "binding" on the Church or iconographer practice is questionable. That the Church has accepted the general principles given in these books is the cause for the books, not visa-versa.
As to the statement, "St. Luke is credited with painting the first icons of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Each subsequent iconographer has used the original icon as a guide. Therefore, even today an iconographer may not change the shape of Christ’s face", that would in many ways go against the very intent of icons not serving to be a perfect likeness of the face of anyone depicted, but to look past that into the spiritual. There are numerous accepted icons of Christ wherein His facial features vary from each other. That said, however, one would be hard pressed to find icons which take the liberties of contemporary western depictions of Christ that tend to bring the viewer to think about what He looks like rather than Who He is.
As to the iconography by Saint Luke, I have seen him reasonably credited with icons of the Theotokos, and some also say he portrayed Sts Peter and Paul, but stories of his writing the first icon of Christ are more legend that anything else. BTW, my wife and I have been blessed to have been able to venerate one of the icons attributed to St Luke.
I am neither an iconographer nor an "art critic", but I did spent several months researching the early history of iconography and early Christian religious art in general for the presentation I referred to here. In the very early Church, there was a hesitance to engage in significant religious art, lest it violate the Second Commandment. Thus the crude "Good Shepherd" as well as crude baptismal scenes that have been found in early Christian archiological sites. The iconic depictions with which we are familiar came later, and incorporated many of the techniques we see today.
What I am trying to say is that the very nature of the icon, as it has evolved and as we know it today, is so very appropriate in its form that it need not, and is not bound by "rules and regulations", but rises far above that. Inspiration knows no human rules.
Al
Paros Island, Greece
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