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The name "Icon" comes from Greek
word "Eidon" meaning primarily a painted image or likeness of Christ,
the Virgin, or a saint. The Russian word is "Ikona" or "Obraz.
"With time the scope of the icon became larger, first depicting important
events from the Old and the New Testaments, then from the lives of saints,
primarily local and national saints, and finally major episodes from the life
of the people which also convey a religious message. In the beginning icon
painting was kept within monastery walls, and the artists who painted them were
for the most part simple monks. There were also a few prelates who
distinguished themselves as capable iconographers, including two famous Moscow
metropolitans, Peter and Makari. The present Abbot of the Pechora Monastery
redecorated himself the cathedral and painted several very good icons. His
heroism during operations against the Nazis was recognized and he could have a
made a great career after the war if he had not devoted himself to monastic
life. Amazing as it may seem, some of these unknown monks produced real
masterpieces that gave hope to the faithful or eased their sorrow. They painted
the invisible, they filled it with sensibility, and they found a way to make it
reach human hearts. Before starting to paint the monks followed certain
rituals: They spent long hours in praying and meditation, had to fast for days,
then confess and received the sacrament, and only then begin to work. They
painted the icons on seasoned slabs of wood, cut with an axe to the needed
size. To prevent warping and connect the boards strongly, when two or more were
used for larger icons, usually two dovetail strips of wood, one from each side,
were inserted into horizontal mortises in the back of the boards. The
construction is solid and no nails were used. The front of the old boards is
slightly convex and they look as if they were framed because the central part,
reserved for painting, is hollowed out about an eight of an inch. The front of
the board was first impregnated and covered with two or three layers of ground
chalk mixed with fish glue, called in Russian "Levkas. "Sometimes a
fine white cloth was laid in between the first and the second layer; after the
primer was smooth, the boards were ready for painting. Great ingenuity was
needed to enrich the set of colors that iconographers used on their palettes.
In Russia, they were first found in the stones along the banks of rivers.
Those around the town of Vologda are of pastel colors and soft like chalk, and
are still found. They were first ground into fine powder and then mixed with
egg yolk. The colors were then thinned with kvass - a traditional Russian drink
made of double baked rye bread that was left to ferment. Stones were not the
only source of pigment. The most often used ochre was made of burned clay to
which ferric oxide was added; red mercury sulfide gave a vermilion color. The
bark of alder tree when boiled together with crystallized iron vitriol produced
black color. Sulfates of some other metals and minerals were also used for
other colors and together with flowers, berries and tree barks were a
considerable source of icon pigment . After the paint dried out the icon was
varnished with Olifa" - made of linseed or hemp seed oil boiled with lead
oxide. Finally the icon was taken to the church where it was required to stay
for a certain number of days and was consecrated before being taken to a
private home. Ancient icons normally were not signed by their artists; most of
whom were monks. We learn about their identity either from legends or from
chronicles, primarily or some other event. The unassuming and pious monks would
consider it to be a sort of a sacrilege to have put their names on an object to
which miraculous power is ascribed and on which an image of Jesus or a saint
was painted. Through centuries icons had been regarded not only as images but
as religious objects which a Christian should worship. Both the saint depicted
and the icon itself are sacred.
Despite limitations imposed by the Church on the freedom of icon painters
to express their artistic conceptions, in their work, which today look
cumbersome, there was still a large field in which Iconographers could freely
exercise their talents. The often-mentioned canonical rigidity served more as a
guardian of the identities of religious figures, whom nobody has ever seen and
whose likeness could not be established other than by continuous repetition,
than as a real assault on artistic creativeness. It is true iconographers could
not change the substance of a scene, but within the limits of the prescribed
theme they were free in most cases to compose the icon their own way, to
develop their own style, to choose colors and tonalities, accentuate or
minimize certain details or give their own expression to the faces they
painted. Some of them did not hesitate to use as models for their icons healthy
and natural people around them. We see peasant faces on many old icons. In this
respect unknown Greek, Russian or Serbian monks were no less free when they
painted their icons than were the great western painters when royalty or high
clergy commissioned them to paint portraits. The vestment worn by Orthodox
clergymen during the service has existed since early times. It is very colorful
and rich, and it was here that icon painters could show their gift for color
and the picturesque. Of considerable importance is the fact that those
monk-iconographers were also warmly devoted to their Church and naturally, they
looked for inspiration in their faith in God. This loyalty to the Church and
complete mastership of line, form and color were needed to give icons that
tremendous expression of inner feelings, to put beauty into suffering, show
insensitivity to physical pain and bring spiritual peace to perfection. There
are no prescribed rules that could achieve this. Of course, the artistic value
of an icon depended primarily on the talent of the man who painted it. Those
who knew how to draw delicate lines and combine colors to beam with love and
hope created masterpieces; others made mediocre and even bad icons. Among the
old ones there are many that, when cleaned, pleasantly surprise us with their
uncanny forms, and tender and gay pastel colors. They are far from canonically
rigid, as so often exaggeratedly imputed to icons by many western critics.
There is great simplicity, naivete, delicacy, childishness, even poetry in some
old Russian icons and this explains the adoration that people had for them. Not
many great contemporary masters used their palette better than these simple
Russian monks did. Some of them produced symphonies in color, tough they had a
limited number of natural hues to choose from.
For centuries icons were regarded as objects of veneration and the value
attached to them was purely theological. Hardly any attention was focused on
their artistic importance, though it usually happened that those considered the
most miraculous were at the same time the most beautiful. It was quite natural
to expect of those who, in the name of God, created sacred objects that hey be
of high aesthetic value, and in general we see in religious art that the
beautiful was a part of the ethical. The two were never mutually exclusive.
From the 11th until the 17th century religious painting grew into the major
artistic expression of the Slavic Orthodox world. Though primarily of religious
content, icons often reflected events and moments form the life of the people
or of their leaders. In many instances saints are shown to be venerated not
because of their sacredness but for their human compassion, kindness and love.
Thus the Virgin is generally shown as an incarnation of motherly love, Saint
John as the embodiment of hope and concern for the humiliated; Saint Nicholas
earned his great popularity for being just and ready to help everybody in any
occasion. Icon painting, just because of its subject, is not less the result of
the creative force of the people and their love for the beautiful than has been
the case with music or dancing. All three have their roots in folklore. The
difference is that Russian iconography was confined to churches and monasteries
until just about a century ago when the aesthetic value of the old icons and
frescoes began to be "Discovered."
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