One of the great difficulties that I believe the Orthodox Church has always had is control over her iconographers. More than ever, especially today, icons are being painted without understanding, and people who are not steeped in the Orthodox iconographic tradition are taking over our sacred art, teaching and painting, and their icons are ending up on our altars to be blessed, or worse, in our churches to be venerated and prayed before. The Church has attempted to deal with this situation. For example, the Hundred Chapters Council suggested that bishops and metropolitans appoint someone to be an overseer of icon studios and iconographers, to make sure that the images being produced adhered to the iconographic tradition. Yet in the 21st Century, the situation is worse than ever.
While I was recently staying in New Valamo Monastery
in Finland, a woman from the city of Tampere brought a suitcase-load of icons
to the monastery to be blessed. I am not sure if all the icons were painted by
her, or if she was bringing them on behalf of her iconography club, but she
brought twelve icons with her. Somehow, in Finland, it has come about that
having the New Valamo Monastery stamp, saying that the icon was blessed on the
altar of New Valamo Monastery, is the sign that you have arrived as an
iconographer, that you have become an iconographer. It is the “seal of approval.”
Unfortunately, when all of these icons were laid out
on the proskemedia table and scruitinized, with much discussion between Igumen
Sergei and myself, only four of the twelve were deemed blessable. The remaining
icons were not blessed, for various reasons: some because of incorrect
inscriptions, some because of composition, some because they were icons of
saints not recognized by the Orthodox Chuch, some because of misspellings. It
was truly sad to see, as the iconographer had a budding talent, but to bless
these works and confer upon them the seal of blessing would be wrong, would
have not done the Church or the iconographer any service. For each icon that
was rejected, we sent back a note with an explanation of why the work could not
be blessed, not wanting to quench the spirit, but to encourage.
Where we run into a problem today is that there is not
the mechanism in our Church to judge what is being produced and reproduced. The
priest in the church today has the final say as to what is blessable and what
is not, and this leads to problems as well. By and large, our priests are not
educated in iconology. When many of us were in seminary (I am speaking
specifically about my time in St Vladimir’s Seminary in Crestwood NY), there
were no classes offered on iconology. The basic instructions on what an icon is
and what constitutes an icon are not taught to our seminarians, and these
graduates are being priested and in turn are left to instruct and to judge what
is blessable and what is not. No matter how hard they try, metropolitans,
archbishops, and bishops cannot be “everywhere present and filling all things”
and, unfortunately, are not all aware of what makes an icon. How can we change
the situation?
First and foremost, our priests must be educated in
iconology. There is no excuse for this not being a mandatory course in our
seminaries. Seminarians need to be educated by an iconologist who is also an
iconographer knowledgable in the tradition, who is more concerned about being
an iconographer than being an artist.
Third, besides the overall education of clergy and
laity, it is also important to use the following checklist. It was developed
while I was in New Valamo Monastery with the help of one of the best-known
iconographers in Finland, Bishop Arseni of Joensuu. This checklist has all of
the reasons why an icon would be considered unblessable by the Church. This
checklist is meant to be photocopied or typed up, and brought to our altars for
the priest to use, and it is also meant to be used by all iconographers to make
sure that their icons meet the standards of the Orthodox Church. When an icon
that causes pause is brought to the altar, the priest can go through the
checklist and check off which boxes are appropriate, and return the unblessed
icon to the iconographer. I was asked once how many of the boxes would need to
be checked off for an icon to not be blessed, and the answer is “only one.”
This work cannot be blessed and is not considered an
icon because:
1. It is a fragment of an icon, not a
whole icon.
2. It is a fragment of a wall
painting.
3. It does not have a feast day
particular to it.
4. It does not have a name or the
symbols of the name on it.
5. This is a sketch for an icon and
not an actual icon.
6. There is a misspelling in the text.
7. The saint in the icon is not an
Orthodox saint.
8. The inscription on this icon is
incorrect.
9. This is not a canonical icon.
These points need some explanation. It is marvelous
that we live in a society
and a culture where we have so much print media
available to us. I have many, many books on icons, from many different places
in the world. I can take a book down and look at all the photographs and
details of photographs of icons, and if I am not careful, I can mistake a
detail for an appropriate model to paint. Unfortunately, this sometimes
happens: either iconographers paint, or those who make print icons print, only
details of icons and not the whole thing. A detail cannot be considered an
icon, just as a photograph of a left eye cannot be considered a portrait of a
person. The same is true for life icons: when we have reproductions of the life
of a saint, say, for example, the familiar icon of St Herman of Alaska and the
details of his life, if we take one part of that life icon, for example, St
Herman’s stopping the tidal wave, or his body’s being taken from Spruce Island
on a helicopter, those details cannot stand by themselves as icons. In the
context of the life icon, they are perfectly acceptable, but taken out of
context, they cannot be considered icons.
Similarly, fragments of wall paintings do not make
panel icons. There are things that are represented on the walls of churches
that—in the context of the church decoration and in the context of the church’s
iconographic programme—are correct, as the decoration of the church proclaims
the whole history of our salvation. Taking a detail from the walls out of
context, however, causes that image to cease being an icon.
One simple definition of an icon is that it is a
religious painting, in a variety of media, that has a feast day particular to
it. There are events that are represented in wall paintings, for example, the
miraculous draft of fish, that does not have a feast day. Or again, citing life
icons, there is no feast day of St Herman’s stopping the tidal wave, just as
there is no feast day of St George’s being tortured. Again, taking these
elements out of context causes them to cease to be icons. The one exception to
this point are icons of Christ. There is only one feast day that I know of on
our calendar that is dedicated to an icon of Christ, and that is for the icon
of the Face Made without Hands, on August 16. All other icons of Christ are
without feast days.
The fifth point is something that is necessary, as I
have seen in my time in New Valamo Monastery. Sometimes framed drawings for
icons came across the altar to be blessed. Even though they have the potential
to inspire an icon, they are not icons themselves. Many times simple line
drawings are inscribed on wood using a laser : does the fact that the drawing
is now on wood make it an icon? Pardon the pun, but we have to draw the line
somewhere.
The sixth point is one that I experienced many times
in my vocation as an iconographer. I have painted icons for people whose
language of prayer was not English. I have painted icons with inscriptions in
Finnish, Swedish, German, Slavonic, English, Danish, and so on. And several
icons I have had sent back from the altar to have the inscriptions corrected.
If an icon is a proclamation of the truth of our faith, then is it not too much
to expect that the spelling be correct?
The seventh point is a contentious one. So many people
today, of different faiths, paint icons. And many people bring them to Orthodox
churches to have them blessed. Unfortunately, not all of the saints represented
are Orthodox Saints. There is also a great danger in using the internet if you
are looking for proper models, because some who call themselves iconographers
have painted, in iconographic styles, saints of all different faiths, and even
people that no church has recognised as saints. Even if an image is done in a
Byzantine iconographic style, this does not mean that it is an icon that is
blessable on an Orthodox altar. The date 1054 AD is our cut off mark for
sharing saints with the Roman Catholic Church, or among some historians, 1204
AD (the Fourth Crusade), or even 1453 AD (the fall of Constantinople) Whatever
the date cited as the official one for the schism between East and West, those
dates need to be respected, no matter how fond we are of various holy people of
other traditions. This is not to say that we cannot have devotion to these
saints, or even sacred images of them, but what it does say is that these icons
should not be blessed on our altars.
Point eight is a very interesting one. One of the
icons that was brought to the
New Valamo Monastery altar was an icon of the
Nativity. What the iconographer had written as the inscription for the icon was
not “The Nativity of Christ” but “ Christ is Born, Glorify.” Also, what the
iconographer had used as the model for the icon was a Christmas card. This
point is clear : iconographers must use the traditional inscriptions for their
icons, be they event icons or the epithets used for saints. The amount of
research that one sometimes must do in order to make sure that the epithet is
correct can be enormous, but just as making sure your model is within the
iconographic tradition, this is also something each iconographer must do.
The last point is one that is hard to explain. As was
pointed out to me by Bishop Arseni of Joensuu, checklist points one to eight
are tangible: one can usually show on the panel itself what it is that prevents
the icon from being blessed. The last point, however, is intangible. Again, I
will blame print media (just because it is printed in a book of icons does not
mean it is a canonical icon), and those iconographers who have gone before us
who may have been more concerned with being artists than iconographers. Over
time, icons have been produced that do not conform to the canon of iconography.
For example, there is an icon of Christ the Blessed Silence. It is an image of
Christ shown as an angel. It fits into the realm of the dogmatic icon, and yet
it is not canonically an icon. Another type of icon that fits into this
category is icons of God the Father. Even though the Hundred Chapters Council
condemned the image, one can find an icon of God the Father over the royal
doors in New Valamo Monastery. There is also an image of the Paternity inside
the main gates of the Sergeiev-Trinity Lavra in Sergeiev Posad, home of the
Moscow Spiritual Academy and its School of Iconography. These are just two
examples of hundreds of non-canonicl icons out there: we must be discerning in
how best to judge what is canonical.
At the same time we also must be very careful about
all these listed points, because iconography is a living tradition.
The Orthodox Church is not a museum of all that is ancient, but a living,
vibrant Church. So too is our iconography : new saints are being canonized all
the time, and new iconography is being created all the time to express the
truth of the faith. One rallying cry for iconographers is that we are to
imitate, not innovate, and for the most part, this is something I agree with
wholeheartedly. But that does not mean there is no creativity in the bounds of
the iconographic tradition. The Church does recognise new iconography: it just
takes time. What is not canonical or accepted by the Church eventually
disappears—or so it did once, before the advent of the internet and mass media
publications.
This list does not say anything about style.
It is difficult as a teacher of iconography, especially in this present age, to
criticize anyone’s work. Perhaps that is why I no longer teach iconography
classes. However, one must be willing to say what is good and what is not.
Otherwise, the iconographer will not learn and grow. Unfortunately, when it
comes down to matters of taste, if all the positive elements of this checklist
are present, it needs to be up to the priest to say something. From my own
experience, I am thankful for my parish priest’s admonishments, no matter how
hard it was to hear at the time, that I should stop painting icons and get some
proper instruction, as he could see that my work was going down the wrong path,
and not being done for the glory of God.
Source: http://www.pravmir.com/what-is-blessable-as-an-icon/
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