“If a pagan comes to you saying, ‘Show me your faith!’, take him to a church and seat him before the holy icons,” wrote Saint John of Damascus 13 centuries ago, affirming what strikes any modern observer, wherever they may be, with the same intensity: it is the image that gives the Eastern Christian Church its identity. Upon its power is founded a culture, a civilisation and a doctrine of faith. Its role is not merely to represent God incarnate and His saints, but also to be placed in the service of God. Through the icon, the viewer’s mind is directed towards eternity and the contemplation of God. Its role is to make intelligible a reality transfigured by grace, to constantly bring close to us the life and teachings of Jesus Christ and those who followed Him, and also to adorn places of worship and the homes of Christians.
The Icon: Theology and Art
From the 4th century, when Christianity became the official religion of the Byzantine Empire, the icon began to play an increasingly important role in the daily life of Christians. The veneration of martyrs and holy relics, and the construction of baptisteries and places of worship where the Eucharist was celebrated, led to the growing importance of the image. Whether these images served to commemorate a moment in the life of the Saviour, the Virgin Mary or the saints, or whether they contained something of the immortal soul of those they represented, was a hotly debated theological issue. For theologians of the early centuries of Christianity, depicting the divine was a matter of defining dogma, as the representation of the divine conflicted with the commandment given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai: ‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth! You shall not bow down to them or worship them’ (Exodus 20:4–5).
When Emperor Leo III (717–741) began the persecution of icons, banning the depiction of the image of Christ, the ensuing dispute took the form of a theological conflict involving emperors, patriarchs, theologians and monks. It was a struggle that dominated the eighth and ninth centuries, and people died for the right to paint icons and to venerate them; today they are martyrs, honoured in the synaxarion and depicted, in turn, in icons.
An icon known as the Triumph of Orthodoxy or Orthodoxy Sunday has been preserved from the 14th century, when the theme was first depicted. It depicts the feast established by the Council of Constantinople in 843 to mark the triumph over iconoclasm, the definitive victory of those who fought for the right to represent Christ and His followers. Looking at it, we can understand how that event was experienced by people at the time. We know from historical sources that they took to the streets of Constantinople at that time, setting out from the Church of Vlaherne with icons and crosses, that they then held a solemn service at Hagia Sophia, finally entering, through the Chalke Gate into the Great Palace. The icon depicts Empress Irene and her son, Emperor Michael III, along with Patriarch Methodius, to whom, in their capacity as leaders of the state and the Church, the victory is attributed. At the bottom centre of the icon are depicted the Holy Pious Stephen the Younger, a monk who was martyred for the defence of icons, and Theodore the Studite, who wrote treatises in defence of icons. The two are holding an icon of Christ-Emmanuel. To their left is the Venerable Theodosia, who confronted the guards of Emperor Leo III when they removed the icon of Christ from the gate of the imperial palace; she too is holding an icon in her hand. Also depicted are the Venerable Ioanichie the Great, the brothers Theodor and Theophan Graptoi (or ‘the Inscribed’, so named because the emperor ordered his soldiers to brand verses defending the icons onto their foreheads with a red-hot iron), Theophylact and Acacius, all pious monks and defenders of the icons. All of them are now recognised as saints, as defenders of the right to represent Christ in images. For the defeated side – the iconoclasts – hostility towards images was not an end in itself, but it pointed to something that might be summarised as follows: If God cannot be confined and depicted in a painting, but only man can be, then the icon of Christ denies His divinity. On the other hand, for the iconodules – those who won the struggle – not being able to depict Christ meant denying His humanity, the fact that He was a Man, that He took on flesh.
The victory over those who persecuted icons restored the image of Christ and His saints to its rightful place, but the losses were immense. Icons were destroyed, the walls of churches were covered with decorative paintings, and many images of the saints were erased. This is why most of the images that have survived date from the period after the 9th century. From the 10th century onwards, iconographic programmes and the manner in which churches were decorated began to take shape, and by the 13th–14th centuries, all the themes of Christian iconography had already been established. This canon has been preserved to this day. It was codified in pattern books by iconographers, and these guidelines are still used today by church painters.
The iconoclastic controversy is key to understanding Christian thought on the meaning of art and the sanctity conveyed through images… If Christ, being God, became incarnate and became Man, then this means that His divinity and humanity can and indeed must be represented, taking on a form and shape.
The iconoclastic controversy is key to understanding Christian thought on the meaning of art and holiness as depicted in images. The ban was regarded as heresy, because painting Christ and all His saints, and worshipping or kissing the icons whilst venerating them, does not mean that you are worshipping that object, be it made of wood and paint, made of mosaic, ivory, bronze or gold, but rather that you are showing the honour due to the one depicted, for his holiness is imprinted upon the holiness of that object. That is why we kiss the icons, show them our esteem, and keep them in the holiest of places: because we honour those depicted in them.
The Incarnation of the Saviour, His becoming human, is, theologically speaking, depicted in His very icon. If Christ, being God, became incarnate and became Man, then this means that His divinity and humanity can and indeed must be represented, taking on a form and shape. A theology of the icon took shape during the iconoclastic controversy, and at its origin lay the writings of Patriarch Germanus I of Constantinople and Saint John of Damascus. They provided the first dogmatic arguments in favour of the veneration of icons. They were followed by Saints Theodore the Studite and Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople. Their apologetic treatises also implicitly contributed to the formulation of an iconographic aesthetic, as the iconoclastic controversy concerned not only the nature of God but also the nature of beauty. When, on the orders of Emperor Constantine V, the mosaics depicting scenes from the life of Christ – located in one of the great churches of Constantinople – were destroyed and replaced with paintings of animals and plants, contemporaries felt that ‘all beauty had vanished from the churches’, as a text from that period puts it.
The Byzantine Canon: Aesthetics and Style
Far from being a formula frozen in time, the sacred image has its own history. Christian iconography began in antiquity and flourished in the Middle Ages, when it achieved a considerable richness in its repertoire of themes and means of expression, whilst remaining faithful to tradition. The study of the history of the Byzantine icon – and a history of the icon can be written by tracing the evolution of style over time, the distinctive features of different provinces and geographical regions, as well as the formation and perpetuation of the iconographic canon, the definition of themes, and the relationship between them within an iconographic programme – reveals both the continuity and the breaks, the changes that have occurred over time.
There is a hermeneutics of Byzantine painting, a canon of representation, followed over the centuries, but this does not mean that Byzantine art does not evolve, or that it does not acquire distinct stylistic features depending on the era, geographical area and influences from the Christian West. That is why we can speak of schools, workshops and icon-painters, and of the specific characteristics of Constantinopolitan, Russian, Serbian or Wallachian icons. There is, however, a unity of style, and this gives shape to the aesthetics of Byzantine art, whose traits, defined over time, could be summarised in a few characteristics.
1. The simplified rendering of forms, which thus become refined and dematerialised. Detached from the canon of Greek and Roman antiquity, the representations are stripped of everything that was superficial or laden with materiality, thereby achieving the power of inner expression. This results in the uniformity of the faces, their standardisation, and a departure from real forms.
2. Frontal perspective. The saints are depicted from the front and in accordance with the laws of symmetry, as this ensures full communication with the viewer; the face being the most important element, it is endowed with full expressiveness. The figures possess a certain hieratic quality, a ‘spiritual solemnity’, which stems from the holiness emanating from their faces; in this way, they differ from representations in ancient art, as well as from those of the Renaissance and the Baroque.
3. In the depiction of space, natural perspective is avoided; consequently, the composition does not give the impression of three-dimensionality. The objects in the background are larger, and the vanishing point is not at the back but at the front, resulting in what is known as reverse perspective.
4. The suspension of time. Events that took place at different times can be depicted within the same composition (as, for example, in the icon of the Nativity), and the use of a gold background, which suggests spatial indeterminacy, also evokes a sense of timelessness.
The iconographer achieves these characteristics of the image using a range of artistic techniques, namely a particular way of rendering the garments (which do not take on the natural form of the body of the figure depicted, but, on the contrary, suggest a detachment from what is carnal and earthly), the limbs (which also appear dematerialised, devoid of naturalism; the eyes are large to convey the inner expression of the person, whilst the nose and lips are slender, suggesting the spiritualisation of the senses), the objects in the background (which are depicted schematically and in a simplified manner, with the connection between landscape elements and buildings being conventional, somewhat lacking in geometric logic), and the gestures (which are reduced to the essential, for the sacred figures do not make gestures but ‘preside’, and their movement thus takes on a liturgical, sacramental character).
The iconographic programme: dogma and history
As long as we accept the image—the representation of the Son of God and His saints—we accept that the entire Christian faith is understood and preached through images as well, not merely through the word. The world in which icons are painted is one in which Scripture and devotional literature are familiar to the believer. They view the scenes painted on the walls of a church with a teaching in mind that they have received by taking part in the Church’s services, listening to the interpretation of the Gospels, and reading prayer canons and the lives of the saints. Perhaps to an observer from outside this world, many elements remain unknown, but for Christians, before being a painted backdrop or the subject matter of iconography, the church is the place of liturgical experience. It is the place where those taking part in the service experience an encounter with God. Whether that church is a cathedral, a monastery church or a parish church, on its walls we see the same subjects and the same relationship between them. And this has been the case for centuries, even though we can identify variations between an early iconographic programme (5th–6th centuries) and a later one, which developed following iconoclasm, beginning in the 11th century and reaching its peak in the final century of Byzantium, during the Palaiologos era.
Whilst the earliest Christian basilicas had a simpler, more limited programme with few scenes, the church of the second Christian millennium developed a complex, theologically grounded iconographic programme. Thus, in the altar apse, we see the procession of the Holy Hierarchs, the Communion of the Apostles and the Angelic Liturgy, all themes with a symbolic role, linked to the Sacrament celebrated in the Holy Altar, that is, the Holy Eucharist. Since the altar painting must be interpreted in terms of the liturgical ceremony, the walls of the sanctuary depict what takes place during the Byzantine ceremony of the Divine Liturgy. For this reason, on the unrolled scrolls held in the hands of the hierarchs, for example, we can read the litanies and prayers from the Liturgy (the Anaphora, antiphons, and the prayer at the Proskomedia), so that those depicted seem to emerge from the surface of the wall, surrounding the officiating priest and serving alongside him.
The naos is dedicated to the life of Christ. The paintings on the walls of a church evoke events from the earthly life of the Incarnate Son of God and engage the viewer on several levels. Aesthetically, by effectively surrounding the viewer with narrative scenes, which they can follow and, knowing the life of Christ the Saviour, can understand. If they look up, they catch sight of the Pantocrator, the Almighty, in the dome. His placement within the concavity of the tower or dome suggests to the believer that He embraces all things, and, under His gaze, the believer takes part in the Liturgical Sacrifice, listening to His teaching and following it. The Gospel He holds in His hand is His teaching itself, which is perfected by the blessing He bestows with His right hand, a sign of divine grace. This is an image established as far back as the sixth century, which we see unchanged to this day.
Alongside this vertical dimension, however, we must also consider the horizontal one. The walls of the church, in turn, form a succession of scenes depicting moments from the life of Christ: the miracles and healings He performed during His earthly life, His Passion, burial and Resurrection, all portrayed in successive scenes.
There is, however, another equally powerful presence in the iconography: that of the Most Holy Mother of God. There are scenes from the life of the Mother of God, such as the Presentation in the Temple, the Dormition, and the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth; there are also hymns dedicated to the Most Holy Virgin, depicted on the walls of churches from the 14th century onwards. Also depicted are hagiographic cycles, with the saints grouped by category (hierarchs in the sanctuary, martyrs in the nave, monks and ascetics in the narthex). They may be painted standing or in medallions, on walls, vaults or arches, and are immediately visible to the worshipper as soon as they enter the church, with their frontal orientation and the focus centred on the face, the eyes or a gesture. The worshipper venerates them and asks for their intercession, as those who have followed Christ, just as he too must follow Him.
The iconographer does not offer an image of reality; Byzantine painting was and remains an image for the ‘inner eye’; it goes beyond the outward appearance of beings and things precisely in order to convey their essence.
The church’s paintings, just like the services celebrated within it, bring to life the entire life of Christ in the flesh: His conception, His birth, from His Baptism to the calling of the Apostles, through the three years during which He performed miracles and healings, taught, and which ultimately brought Him before the crowd that raged against Him, and which ended with them demanding His crucifixion. The choice of subjects is rather limited; it evokes God and His Kingdom, those who served Him and His history on earth—that is to say, immutable realities for every Christian. A characteristic of Byzantine iconography is the endeavour to adhere strictly to a programme consisting of the ceaseless reaffirmation of the presence in the Christian’s life of Jesus Christ, His saints and the events of the history of salvation, generally excluding subjects that constitute an iconographic rendering of poetic or doctrinal works. In this respect, Byzantine iconography differs from that of the medieval West, which remains open to the ‘commentary-image’, viewed as a pedagogical tool. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, Byzantium also experimented with this type of iconography, which was geared more towards knowledge, but without abandoning the practice of contemplative iconography, characteristic of the purest era of Byzantine art. And, within this mural decoration, individual types were defined which remained unchanged until the end of the Middle Ages and have endured to the present day. The iconography of Christ the Saviour exhibits the richest and most complex variety of forms: from the development of the type of Jesus Pantocrator, a figure who is both imposing and gentle, with elongated eyes, long hair and a beard (a motif evoking both the Father and the Son, in accordance with a passage from John 12:45: ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the One who sent me’), to images of Christ that fall within what we might call the liturgical or historical type. The simple, concise schemes through which we iconographically represent the feasts or the Passion of the Saviour have ensured their enduring popularity over the centuries and, with few exceptions, primarily in terms of level of detail, the illustration of Scripture through images is limited to following the narrative set out in the holy books, refraining from incorporating into the image the commentaries and exegesis of these texts by the Holy Fathers.
The various representations of these themes across time and space, with all their nuances and particularities, reflect a theology—that of the Eastern Church. The iconographer does not offer an image of reality; Byzantine painting was and remains an image for the ‘inner eye’; it goes beyond the outward appearance of beings and things precisely in order to convey their essence. Material things become transparent to one another and to the eye of the spirit, which thus becomes capable of recognising spiritual values—the only valid reality and the only object worthy of contemplation and, consequently, worthy of being the subject of art. As the Russian historian and iconographer Leonid Uspensky said more than 60 years ago, the icon does not represent the mortal body, destined for decay, as Renaissance art would later do, but the transfigured flesh, illuminated by grace. For whilst the portrait depicts an ordinary human being, the icon depicts a person united with God and, for that reason, it has a liturgical dimension, not a historical one.
