Byzantine Iconography - A Brief Overview

Byzantine Iconography refers to the distinct tradition and style embodied in Orthodox religious images painted during the Byzantine Empire which lasted from the 5th century to the fall of its capital, Constantinople, in the year 1453. This rich tradition continues to this day, over 1,500 years after the first images were created! This enduring heritage is a testament to the powerful religious experience that these images evoke.

 The purpose of icons is first to create reverence in worship and second to serve as an existential link between the worshipper and God. Icons have been called prayers, hymns, sermons in form and color. They are the visual Gospel. As St. Basil said, "What the word transmits through the ear, the painting silently shows through the image, and by these two means, mutually accompanying one another...we receive knowledge of one and the same thing."

One has but enter an Orthodox Church to see unfolded before him on the walls all the mysteries of the Christian faith. "If a pagan asks you to show him your faith," said John of Damascus, "take him into church and place him before the icons."

 The icon is a link between the human and the divine. It provides a space for the mystical encounter between the person before it and God. It becomes a place for an appearance of Christ, the Theotokos or the Saints--provided one stands before the icon with the right disposition of heart and mind. It creates a place of prayer. An icon participates in the event it depicts and is almost a re-creation of that event existentially for the believer. As S. Bulgakov said, "By the blessing of the icon of Christ, a mystical meeting of the faithful and Christ is made possible." Throughout the world, many icons are for this reason regarded as "wonder-working", providing both spiritual and temporal blessings. They are venerated as instruments of miraculous intervention. They provide courage and strength in a world marked with tragedy and suffering. They provide joy since icons remind us that we are deeply loved by God.

 The icon was never intended to hang on a wall merely as an aesthetic object, though it may be stunningly beautiful. If it is used simply as an attractive piece of decoration, its purpose is diminished. An icon can only work its power within the particular framework of belief and worship to which it belongs.

 An icon in the home consecrates the profane; it transforms a neutral dwelling-place into a "domestic church". With prayer, it turns and the life of the faithful into an unceasing liturgy.

 The icon offers an external human expression of the holy transfigured state, of a body filled with the Holy Spirit. By omitting everything irrelevant to the spiritual figure, the figure becomes stylized, spiritualized, not unrealistic but supra-realistic. The icon figure is thereby set aside from all other forms of pictorial art.

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