Icons

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ICONS

ICONS . The term icon (from the Greek eikōn, "image") is applied in a broad sense to all sacred images worshiped by Christians in eastern Europe and the Middle East regardless of the image's media; thus icons may be mosaics, frescoes, engravings on marble or metal, or prints on paper. In its current use the term describes portable sacred images painted on wood, canvas, or glass.

Beginning and Growth of the Veneration of Icons

Portable icons first appeared in Egypt in the third century. The oldest works that have been preserved to this day bear a striking resemblance to the funeral portraits that replaced the masks on the anthropoid coffins of the Hellenistic period. The Judaic tradition, which relied on the biblical prohibition of the use of images in religious worship, was confronted in the eastern Mediterranean area with the Greek tradition, theoretically substantiated by Neoplatonism, according to which the material symbol is an expression of spiritual reality and the image has a didactic function. This latter tradition gained ground even in some Jewish communities; for example, frescoes based on biblical subjects were painted on the walls of the synagogue at Dura-Europos (present-day Salahiyeh, Syria) in the third century. It was the Greek tradition that caused the emergence as early as the second and third centuries of sacred imagery in the Christian church, which had originally used only symbols (e.g., the cross, lamb, fish, and dove). The didactic function of images was generally accepted throughout the Christian world, but the veneration of images did not spread to all areas: It remained a specific cult of Christianity in the Greco-Byzantine tradition.

The earliest icons, like the Hellenistic funeral portraits, originally had a commemorative value: They were representations of martyrs, apostles, the Virgin, and Jesus Christ. As early as the fourth century a typology of characters took shape, and their sacred nature was marked by a nimbus. The authenticity of portraits was an essential concern: The images of Christ and the Virgin were believed to be of miraculous origin, "made without hands" (Gr., acheiropoiētos ); those of the saints were rendered according to descriptions preserved by traditional—oral or written—sources. The oldest icon representing the Virgin originated in Palestine and, with the exception of the visage, was attributed to the apostle Luke; the visage was said to have been painted miraculously, without the touch of the human hand. According to tradition, the representation of Christ relied on a portrait Jesus had sent to the king of Edessa, Abgar Ukkama, "the black" (d. 50 ce), and on the veil of Veronica, said to bear the imprint of the Savior's face (recent research suggests that the name Veronica derives from the Latin vera icona, "true face").

As Christian icon painting developed after the fourth century, themes relating to the historical cycles of Christ's mission (miracles, scenes from his life) and then events from the lives of saints and from the history of the Christian church were introduced. In the sixth century icon worship spread throughout the Byzantine Empire. Icons were displayed to the faithful in churches or during processions, and they were also to be found in private homes. They were either in one piece or were combined from two or three pieces, forming, respectively, diptychs and triptychs. The strength of the development of icon worship, the miraculous powers attributed to certain icons, and the fact that in the minds of the faithful icons were identified with the character they represented, aroused, even from the beginning, opposition and hostility from some of the fathers of the church. This led in the eighth century to the iconoclastic crisis, which resulted in the destruction of a large number of icons, especially in areas under the direct authority of the Byzantine emperors. Nevertheless iconoclasm was unable to prevent the further development of icon worship at the periphery of the empire; hence the oldest icons, dating from the fifth and sixth centuries, were preserved in Georgia (Transcaucasia), on Mount Sinai, and in Cyprus. With the official restoration of the veneration of icons in 843, the practice of veneration became generalized not only in the Byzantine Empire but also in other regions where the Eastern Orthodox church had become predominant, such as the Balkan Peninsula and Russia.

Following the triumph of the doctrine claiming the legitimacy of icon worship many more wall icons were displayed in sanctuaries, and the iconostasis (Gr., eikonostasis, "support for icons") was introduced, a screen of icons that separated the altar from the nave of the church. The iconostasis apparently developed from the templon, a barrier made of stone, marble, or ivory that enclosed the main apse or chancel, where the sacred table was contained.

Theology of Icons

The final elaboration of the theology of icons resulted from the disputes caused by iconoclasm and the rules formulated by the Second Council of Nicaea (787). The earliest elements of the doctrine had already been enunciated in the second to the fourth centuries. Arguing against the Christian apologists who condemned idols as "devilish," such Neoplatonic thinkers as Celsus (latter half of the second century), Porphyry (c. 234–c. 305), and Emperor Julian the Apostate (d. 363) attempted to give a metaphysical justification of sacred images and statues as material symbols expressing external and spiritual realities and fulfilling at the same time a significant didactic function. According to Neoplatonists the relationship between image and prototype is not one of sameness: Images serve only as vehicles by which to approach the divine prototype, which is hidden from humans because of the limitations of their corporeality. The arguments adduced by the Neoplatonists are to be found in subsequent developments of Christian theology. Thus, the concept according to which "sensible images are vehicles whereby we accede, as far as possible, to divine contemplation" was clearly stated by Dionysius the Areopagite (c. 500) in his treatise Ecclesiastical Hierarchy (1.2). The relationship between image and its divine prototype would be later clarified in the same vein in the writings of John of Damascus (c. 679–749) and other authors of the Eastern church.

The Christian authors of the eighth and ninth centuries who formulated the theology of icons relied on a belief that icon worship was a consequence of the incarnation of the Son of God. According to Germanus I, patriarch of Constantinople (r. 715–730), the Son could be portrayed because he "consented to become a man." An icon representing Christ is not an image of the "incomprehensible and immortal Deity" but rather that of the "human character" of the Logos (the Word) and serves as proof that "indeed he became a man in all respects, except for sin." Christ could be represented only "in his human form, in his visible theophany." John of Damascus, who wrote three treatises in defense of "sacred icons," gave the following definition of the painted image of the Deity: "I represent God the Invisible not as invisible but to the extent he became visible to us by partaking of flesh and blood."

John of Damascus and, especially, Theodore of Studios (759–826) and Nikephoros, patriarch of Constantinople (r. 806–815), further clarified the relationship between the sacred image, or icon, and its divine prototype. To them image is essentially distinct from the original: It is an object of relative veneration (Gr., proskunēsis skhetikē). Through the mediation of the icon the faithful actually address the prototype it represents, and so the relative veneration of the image becomes adoration (Gr., latreia ) that is exclusively offered to the Deity. This distinction between adoration of the model and relative veneration of its image removed the danger of turning icons into fetishes, a danger that was inherent in their worship. Theodore of Studios emphasized that "veneration was not due to the essence of the image but rather to the form of the Prototype represented by the image … since matter cannot be subject to veneration."

These clarifications stressed the intimate connection between the theology of icons and the Christological question posed by the heresy of docetism, which questioned the real humanity of Christ and claimed that Christ's body was only apparent. In contradistinction, the icon was claimed to represent the image of an incarnation of the Son of God, thus, according to Germanus, "proving that he invested our nature by means other than imagination." Indescribable by his divine nature, Christ is describable by the complete reality of his historical humanity.

According to Theodore of Studios, "the fact that God made man after his likeness showed that icon painting was an act of God." The theology of icons confers upon icons an almost sacramental role. As the early painters saw it, their art did not belong to aesthetics but rather to liturgy. The perfection of form was no more than an adequate expression of the doctrine. The painter was not an artist in the modern sense of the word but a priest: His talent was a necessary, but not sufficient, condition. He was chosen and guided by a master; the beginning of his apprenticeship was marked by a ritual (e.g., prayer and benediction) quite similar to that of an initiation.

The earliest painters of icons never signed their works because their individuality was believed to be of no consequence. (The first icons to be signed, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, signaled the beginning of decadence in the art of icon making.) Seen as mere interpreters of the truth, the painters of old had to follow strict rules: The subjects of their paintings could only be previously established models, scenes from the holy books, or, more rarely, acknowledged visions; they did their work after having fasted and received the Eucharist; and some even mixed holy water with their colors.

Diffusion of the Cult of Icons

After the conclusion of the iconoclastic crisis, icon painting in Byzantium, under the Palaeologus dynasty (1261–1453), witnessed a remarkable period in which artistic perfection was reached; that style further influenced the art of icon making down to the present time. In the Greek territories the main icon-producing centers were Mount Athos and the imperial workshops in Constantinople, Thessalonica, and, after the fall of Byzantium, Crete. Cretan painters, having remained outside the area of Ottoman domination between 1453 and 1669, produced a great many works that were disseminated throughout the Orthodox world. Their icons displayed a certain lavishness, to be explained by the comfortable conditions in which they were produced; they were increasingly influenced by the contemporary Italian painting not only in the rendering of human visages and bodies, and of space, but even in iconography.

In eastern and southeastern Europe the cult of icons was disseminated by the early missionaries and through contacts with Byzantium. At first icons were brought from the Byzantine territories, but later they began to be produced in local workshops: at Preslav and Veliko Tŭrnovo in Bulgaria; at the courts of Serbian kings and Romanian princes; in Walachia and Moldavia; and in major monasteries in all these countries. They were characterized by their faithfulness to the Byzantine prototypes, but starting in the eighteenth century, popular local tastes made an impact on the choice of colors, the design of costumes, and the decoration of space. The union of a part of the Eastern Orthodox Romanians in Transylvania with the church of Rome gave rise to a unique phenomenon in Eastern Christian art: Icons were painted on glass by peasant artists, producing works that strongly resembled naive folk painting.

Of the oldest icons imported to Russia after the baptizing of the Russians in 988, only works of Byzantine origin dating from the eleventh century have been preserved. In the same century the earliest local icon-making centers began to emerge, first in Kiev and then in Novgorod and Vladimir-Suzdal. The earliest masters were from Byzantium, but soon a specific Russian style took shape; it developed from a spiritualized and ascetic attitude to a search for artistic and didactic effects, a taste for minute detail, and naturalism. The Council of the Hundred Chapters held in Moscow in 1551 reacted against the penetration of Western elements into the art of icon painting and put down rigid, mandatory rules to be followed by painters. This led to a proliferation of handbooks that provided authorized versions (Ch. Slav., podliniki, "outlines") of the holy images; these guides were equivalent to the ones used in the Byzantine Empire beginning in the eleventh century. The reforms enacted by Peter the Great (r. 1682–1725) inhibited the further development of icon painting, and the art subsequently lapsed into conservatism.

In the East after the Council of Chalcedon (451), the church (under the patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem) followed the orthodox doctrine upheld against Monophysitism. In the seventeenth century the style of icon painting known as Melchite developed under new influences—Arabic, in terms of decoration; western European, in terms of subject matter.

Bibliography

The scientific study of icons began in the latter half of the nineteenth century as part of the new discipline of Byzantology and enlisted especially Russian contributions; an essential bibliography is to be found in Oskar Wulff and Michael Alpatoff's Denkmäler der Ikonenmalerei (Leipzig, 1925), pp. 298–299. Earlier research included icons, described as "panel paintings" or "portable images," in studies on Eastern Christian iconography, among which the fundamental work remains Gabriel Millet's Recherches sur l'iconographie de l'Évangile aux quator-zième, quinzième, et seizième siècles (Paris, 1916). In western Europe and America icons were "discovered" as works of art and spiritual creations only after World War I, when the Christian Orthodox tradition was reassessed by Catholic and Protestant scholars; see David Talbot Rice's Byzantine Art, 2d ed., rev. & enl. (Baltimore, 1968). Most experts approach icons as works of art within the general framework of Byzantine or, particularly, Russian art—for example, André Grabar's Byzantine Painting, translated by Stuart Gilbert (New York, 1953), and Tamara Talbot Rice's Icons, rev. ed. (London, 1960). The theology of icons has been systematically studied and clarified mainly by Western Orthodox authors since the 1950s; the most profound works are Leonid Ouspensky and Vladimir Lossky's The Meaning of Icons, translated by G. E. H. Palmer and Eugénie Kadloubovsky, rev. ed. (Crestwood, N.Y., 1982); and Leonid Ouspensky's Essai sur la théologie de l'icone dans l'église orthodoxe (Paris, 1960). Most writings about Eastern Orthodox Christianity contain pertinent chapters on icons: Timothy Ware's The Orthodox Church, rev. ed. (Baltimore, 1964); Paul Evdokimoff's L'orthodoxie (Paris, 1959); and John Meyendorff's Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York, 1979). Photographs of the oldest, fifth- to sixth-century, icons have been published in Georgios A. Sotiriou and Maria Sotiriou's Icones du Mont Sinai/Eikonec the Monha Cina (in Greek and French), vols. 1 and 2 (Athens, 1956–1958). New information about the role of icons during the posticonoclastic period is to be found in Manoles Chatzedakes's "L'évolution de l'icone aux onzième à treizième siècles et la transformation du templon," and Tania Velmans's "Rayonnement de l'icone à l'onzième siècle," in Actes du quinzième Congrès international d'études byzantines, vol. 1 (Athens, 1979), pp. 333–366, 375–419. For icons of the Middle East, see Sylvia Agémian's important study in my collection titled Les icones melkites (Beirut, 1969).