An icon should not harm the soul
This small essay is a
postscript for
Icons and ideals:
dialog with a colleague. There I wrote about the criteria
for a genuine icon which, in my opinion are that: an icon
stimulates the prayerful state of mind,
it conforms to the Scriptures and Tradition, and it uses
the symbolic language of Eastern Orthodox art.
I also used a term “canonical art” throughout the essay in
the sense of “genuine Christian art”. However, there is a
problem with the word “canonical” here. In the English
language, “canonical” means “in accordance with the
decrees of an Ecumenical Church Council”. In Russian
“canonical” is used to mean “according to the example or
prototype”, not necessary “written down by a Church
Council”. There were very few such decrees concerning
Church art: the most important one established that the
denial of the theological legitimacy of the holy images
is a heresy because it effectively corresponds to the
denial of the Incarnation. There were few other Church
Council decrees on art; one of them, a Russian Church
Council, prohibited the depiction of God the Father
because it contradicts Christian theology. It is
noteworthy that the decrees of the Church Councils
regarding iconography have always responded to a certain
serious iconographic = theological deviation. This is a
good example of how the apostolic and, then, the Eastern
Orthodox Church has been developing: the Church, guided
by the Holy Spirit, was accumulating spiritual
knowledge which is embodied as living Tradition. Every
member of the Church was both partaking of this
Tradition and then, in turn contributing to it.
Therefore the knowledge about what the holy image should
look like was an implicit knowledge, embodied by the
whole Church, of what is right and what is wrong, and
only when the deviation from this knowledge would
threaten to turn into a spiritual epidemic would the
Church express its opinion in a form of a decree.
I suppose that the Church
did not make detailed rules for iconographers simply
because the rules that applied to all Christians were
more than enough for them. They were not iconographers
who burnt holy images during that iconoclastic heresy,
and the deviations which have occurred from time to time
have
involved both non-iconographers and iconographers. These
deviations, even when iconographic, always involve
theology.
There is however a quite
unique decree of the Russian Church Council of 1551
concerning art and iconographers (chapter 43). It says
that the icon must be made only with “pure hands”. An
iconographer must not be “proud”, must be “modest,
reverential, pious”, must not be “an idle talker, a
laughter-maker and mocker, an argumentative swearer,
envious, a drunkard, stealer, murderer; he especially
should keep his spiritual and bodily purity with great
care, often ask the advice of his spiritual father and
live in fasting, prayer and humility.” This, quite late
document, in my opinion lays down the foundation for
understanding what makes a genuine holy image.
In my opinion a genuine icon
is always done with a sense of awe before the sacred.
This feeling is known to almost every human being, of
any faith, even to atheists because one can experience
it before nature, or a human soul, or anything of deep
beauty and goodness. This can explain by the way why
genuine sacred art of any faith may inspire awe in the
hearts of people who do not share that faith. In fact,
there are known examples of people converting to a
certain religion out of this sudden experience of the
sacred conveyed by its art.
Two features, in my opinion,
characteristize the sense of awe before the sacred: the
sense of one’s own smallness compared to the object of
contemplation and the joy of being allowed to
contemplate it: “God, who am I to see you and yet I can!
Thank you, Lord!” It is a realization of ones’ own sins
without overwhelming despair. This is exactly what
the Russian Church Council meant by “being not proud”. It
also mentions “being a mocker” as an unacceptable
condition for an iconographer. Both pride and mockery
expand oneself out of proportion making no place in her
for God. And if as the Church believes the Holy Spirit
works through the iconographer’s hands such a person
simply shuts the Holy Spirit out. Her icons are devoid
of divine life and carry instead the imprint of her own
damaged psyche.
I am the last person to
claim that to paint an icon one must be sinless or pure
or saintly. No, the iconographer should just know that
she is sinful, do her best and ask God to paint through
her.
There is also a question of
skills. Obviously, the painters’ skills are very
important and the icons must be painted by the people
with artistic abilities and learning but these are
secondary to the sense of the sacred. If someone presented
me with the choice of which icon to use for my private
prayers, very sincere but badly done or very skillfully
painted but empty I would choose the first. At least its
spirit does not disturb my prayer.
This conclusion brings me to
the beginning of my discourse, namely, to the
difficulties of definition of the genuine icon. There
are no obvious rules apart from a very few, and a
personal sensitivity, nourished by the living tradition,
to a “right spirit”. I realize that this position will
be a target for advocates of criteria such as
“Byzantine style” or “with gold”, or other black and
white definitions. A very typical response of such
critics is “look at what messily painted icons you
approve” or “who are you to judge that an icon has a right
spirit or not”. I have already answered the question of
“messy colours” in another essay, as for who is fit to
judge I can say: it is we as members of the Church who,
just as everyone, are called at each moment to
differentiate between right and wrong.
Following this way of
thinking, it is my conviction that the icons of any
style, any time, and any nation which are made with
great awe and great skills may be truly great; while the
icons which are made with great awe and poor skills may
be acceptable, but those ‘icons’ made without awe, with
a spirit of mockery, even with great skills simply cause
damage to the soul.
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