Icons

History of icons

An icon (from Greek ?????, eikon, ╚image╩) is an artistic visual representation or symbol of anything considered holy and divine, such as God, saints or deities. An icon could be a painting (including relief painting), sculpture, or mosaic.By extension, ╚icon╩ is also used in the general sense of symbol ≈ i.e. a name, face, or picture that is readily recognized by most people to represent some well-known entities or attributes.

Images in early Christianity and Judaism

To accurately understand icons, it is important to make a clear distinction between art created by early Christians and the later tradition of the Byzantine icon and the related icons still made and used in the various communities of Eastern Orthodoxy. While one may speak of ╚images╩ in the non-technical sense of art created by the early Christians near the end of the 2nd century (there is no known 1st century Christian art), one must be careful not to confuse early Christian art, which was largely symbolic, with the later and very developed Eastern Orthodox tradition of icons and icon veneration.

It is only later that the icon as it is presently known and used in Eastern Orthodoxy appeared. And it was even later, in the 8th Century, and only after immense controversy and political seesawing, that a theological justification was created and adopted for the making and use of icons within Christianity.

Icons as they are known today in Eastern Orthodoxy, then, were a later development within the Church, and we must be careful not to confuse them with earlier Christian art such as that found in the Roman catacombs, which consisted of symbols and simple depictions of specific scenes borrowed from the Jewish and Christian scriptures.

There is no evidence whatsoever of the making and use of icons within the New Testament writings. Nor do the canonical Christian scriptures contain any command or suggestion to make them √ in fact there is no mention of them at all.

We may speak of ╚images╩ in the Jewish Scriptures, but again we must be careful not to confuse them with the later icon tradition that rose gradually after the legalization of Christianity within the Roman Empire by the emperor Constantine in the 4th century.

Archeologists have discovered a number of mosaics depicting biblical events in the remains of Roman Period synagogues, and these reveal an artistic tradition that borrowed from pagan sources, such as the use of the signs of the zodiac, and sometimes even the sun represented as the god Helios. Such evidence reveals that the Old Testament ban on images was not always understood in exactly the same manner at all times or by all communities within Judaism, nor enforced with equal severity.

Eusebius of Caesarea, a 4th century bishop and controversial church historian, reports a popular story that gave rise to the later tradition regarding the ╚first╩ Christian icon. In this story, Abgarus of Edessa sent a letter to Jesus at Jerusalem, asking Jesus to come and heal him of his sickness. Later this story was expanded and elaborated until it told of Jesus taking a towel and pressing it against his own wet face, leaving the miraculous imprint of his face on the cloth. Jesus sent that cloth to the king, who was healed by it. One can trace the gradual development and elaboration of this story over time, and there is no reason to consider it historical in any of its variants. Legends relate that the cloth remained in Edessa until the 10th century, when it was taken to Constantinople. In 1204 it was lost when Constantinople was sacked by Crusaders.

The developed legend of Jesus and the miraculous towel is the non-historical event on which John of Damascus later based his defense of icons, providing the foundation for the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of the making and use of icons by inaccurately tracing them back to Jesus himself. In the Latin West a different legend developed of a miraculous image appearing on a cloth, that of St. Veronica, whose name is likely derived from ╚Vera Icona╩ or ╚True Icon╩.

Eusebius, who was himself opposed to such images (and was later considered a heretic within Orthodoxy), also reports seeing what he took to be portraits of Jesus, Peter and Paul and thought to be of some age. Eusebius mentions a bronze statue at Banias / Paneas, of which he writes, ╚They say that this statue is an image of Jesus╩ (H.E. 7:18); further, he relates that locals thought the image to be a memorial of the healing of the woman with an issue of blood by Jesus (a story found in Luke in the New Testament), because it depicted a standing man wearing a double cloak and with arm outstretched, and a woman kneeling before him with arms reaching out as if in supplication. Scholars today think it more likely to have been a misidentified ╚pagan╩ statue whose true identity had been forgotten; some have thought it to be Aesculapius, the God of healing, but the description of the standing figure and the woman kneeling in supplication is precisely that found on coins depicting the bearded emperor Hadrian reaching out to a female figure symbolizing a province kneeling before him (see John Francis Wilson's Caesarea Philippi: Banias, the Lost City of Pan; I.B Taurus, London, 2004). It would have been easy for Christians, who did not know what Jesus looked like, to have mistaken a statue of Hadrian and a kneeling ╚province╩ as a representation of Jesus. It is noteworthy that in the later icon tradition, three-dimensional statues were commonly forbidden in Eastern Orthodoxy.

In the Roman catacombs there are simple early Christian paintings depicting Jesus as a beardless young magician holding a wand, as well as depictions of simple Old Testament scenes evoking deliverance, such as Jonah and the ╚Whale╩ and the Three Hebrew Children in the Fiery Furnace. ╚Portrait╩ images, however, such as images of Jesus as ╚Christ Pantocrator╩ (╚Christ, Ruler of All╩) were not made in the earliest period, but were a later development. Early Christians seemed to have no interest in what Jesus really looked like, and it is only later that the image today considered that of ╚Jesus╩ developed; but all such images are imaginary depictions. As St. Augustine wrote, no one knew what Jesus really looked like.

Luke the Evangelist is credited by later Christian legend with painting several icons of the Virgin Mary, at least one of which is believed to be still extant, having been returned to Tikhvin, Russia in 2004. Iconography flourished during the Byzantine Empire beginning in the fifth or sixth century. Scientific research has shown that in spite of the number of old icons believed for centuries to have been painted by Luke, none are remotely old enough to give any support to the legend.

Iconoclasms and the reformation

Starting in the eighth century, Christianity has seen many heated, sometimes bloody disputes about the veneration of images, which some regarded as innocuous or commendable, while other saw as a form of idolatry. These disputes often led to iconoclasms, the widespread destruction of icons. The most notable ones were the total ban imposed by Leo III in 730 throughout the Byzantine Empire, and the less successful repeat by his successor Leo VI in 813.

Religious imagery was also a point of contention for the Protestant reformers, who incited or organized iconoclasms in various parts of Europe, and still generally avoid the use of such icons, in churches or at home.

Icons in the Eastern Christian traditions

The use of icons developed further in Kievan Rus (which later expanded to become the Russian Empire) following its conversion to Orthodox Christianity in the late tenth century. They came to be used particularly in Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern-rite Catholic jurisdictions. as a general rule, these icons strictly followed models and formulas hallowed by usage, some of which had originated in Constantinople. The personal, improvisatory and creative traditions of Western European religious art are largely lacking in Russia before the 17th century, when Russian icon painting was strongly influenced by religious paintings and engravings from both Protestant and Catholic Europe.

Russian icons are typically paintings on wood, often small. Many religious homes in Russia, for example, have icons hanging on the wall. There is a rich history and rich patterns of religious symbolism associated with icons. The Orthodox sometimes call them ╚windows into heaven╩. In the churches of those Eastern denominations, the nave is typically separated from the sanctuary by an iconostasis a wall of icons.

Russians speak of an icon as having been ╚written╩, because in the Russian language the word ╚pisat'╩ means both to paint and to write. Sometimes this usage has been mistakenly borrowed into English, which does have a distinction between writing and painting.

Icons are often illuminated with a candle or jar of oil with a wick. (Beeswax for candles and olive oil for oil lamps are preferred because they burn very cleanly.) Besides the practical purpose of making them visible in an otherwise dark church in the days before electricity, this symbolically indicates that the saint(s) depicted are illuminated by the Christ, the Light of the World.

When Orthodox Christians venerated or showed honor and respect for icons, they did not always make a clear distinction between the icons and the saints they depicted. Tales of miraculous icons that moved, spoke, or even bled are quite common and were once considered factual. Even today among conservative Eastern Orthodox there arise tales of miraculous icons that exude a fragrant, healing oil.

Some of the most venerated Orthodox icons are treated in separate articles, e.g. Our Lady of Vladimir, Our Lady of Smolensk, Our Lady of Kazan and The Black Madonna of Czestochowa. Probably the most famous icon-painter was St. Andrei Rublev (active from 1405 to 1427). Russians frequently commission icons to be made for private use, depicting on the outer margins of the central image the added figures of specific saints for whom they or members of their family were named. These ╚custom made╩ icons were often clad in gilt or silvered metal of ornate workmanship.

╚Icons are also made to glorify the heavenly abundance by using precious metals, enamels and/or gemstones for their encasement (Oklad, Riza). Sacred art such as icons can be a source of solace to the sorrowful. Miraculous properties have been attributed to certain famous icons at different times and place╩. (Source: The InstaPLANET Cultural Universe)

Christian Church teaching about Icons

According to the Orthodox Church doctrine, the icon, as well as the word, is one of the means for the understanding of God. There are four tightly interlaced aspects in the gnosiological sphere of the Church doxy of the icons:

the didactical aspect, which ╚literally╩ corresponds to text and topical side of the Scripture and Church tradition;

the symbolical aspect, which corresponds to the ╚allegorical╩ level of the Bible;

the mystical aspect (persons, ╚depicted╩ on the icon, are present themselves in their images, thus actually appearing in them for the world;

and, finally, the liturgical aspect of the icon itself, which is closely related to the mystical (during the liturgy the icon possesses the divine energy, the power of the liturgical image).

Iconoclasts, rejecting icons, nevertheless allowed religious painting; thus, they denied the mystical and liturgical aspects of the sacred images. Protestants generally use religious art today for teaching and for inspiration, but such images are not ╚venerated╩ as in Orthodoxy.

According to Theodore the Studite, similarly to the incarnation of the divine Word (Logos, ?????) which has occurred as the ╚connection of not connectable╩ and as the tie of the ╚describable with not describable╩, so also ╚Christ, being depicted on the icon, remains indescribable╩.

As of 4th-5th centuries, the Church fathers already came to the conclusion that the image is not the copy of the archetype, but only its reflection, not in to all similar to it. This understanding of the image theory was used to counter, not always successfully, the views of iconoclasts. The Catholic Church accepts the use of religious images, but it did not entirely agree with the Eastern Orthodox viewpoint that led to icons being almost a symbol of the Orthodox Church today.

According to John of Damascus, an image cannot be identical to its transcendent archetype ╚in the essence╩, but it is equal to it ╚in the hypostasis╩ and ╚in the name╩. And, according to the general theory of images, what is depicted on the icon, is not the ╚nature╩ (human or divine), but the hypostasis, so that unimaginable and undescribable archetype can be described on the icon images.