CONTEXT
In the context of the Incarnation dogma, the icon (in Greek, image) is perceived as a specific mediator, which transports the mystic presence of the sacral archetype to the worshipper. Following the relation icon – prayer – salvation, even the ancient Christians considered the holy images as able to open up for the believers the doors to God’s grace.
The icons role is identical to that of the Gospel, and its liturgical, dogmatic and didactic meaning is not an exception because the Sacred Scripture and the sacred image are one and the same evidence, expressed in two different ways, which “refer to and clarify” each other.
Such an interpretation calls for a clarification of the concept of “canon” as a wholeness of written and unwritten rules which make the given piece of church art understandable for the believers and responding to their spiritual needs. The canon, very much like grammar for the writer, helps the author yet by no means limits his/her artistic expression. Thus, the meaning of the icon is not only in its beauty as a piece of art but it lies also in the fact that it expresses beauty related to the Divine.
The Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical council (787) have placed a clear limit between a portrait and an icon. If the portrait presents the physical lines, the character and the psychology of a person, the icon presents the image of the person united with God. Standing quite apart from the portrait in its essence, the icon requires forms of expression, which correspond to its content and which could present sanctity to our earthly eyes.
Colors and lines in the icon construct a space essentially different from that in the realistic painting because the icon does not aim at illusionist effects, nor does it try to mislead the observer, presenting the depicted “as seen”.
The model for this Contemporary Antique Masterwork (55 x 40 cm. approx.) is famous Sinai Annunciation (61 x 42.2 cm) from the end of the twelfth century, which is now kept within the collection of St. Catherine monastery (Sinai). The original follows the usual simple schema of the Gospel story (Lk. 1:26-38) known to us from the frescos in the catacombs of St. Priscilla, yet it also contains numerous symbolic elements which suggest the universal dimension of the Incarnation. Their presence makes the composition of this icon one of the most iconographically detailed works but also one of the most semantically charged. In its upper part a polished golden ray comes out of a semicircular heavenly segment, polished along its form, and points at the Holy Virgin.
In the middle of the ray there is a circularly polished golden disc, a technique emblematic for the Sinai school, with an inscribed dove in its centre – a personification of the Holy Spirit’s Grace coming down over the Holy Virgin Mary. The figure of the Incarnated Infant in a transparent mandorla is subtly suggested at the point where the ray touches the Virgin.
This exceptionally rare iconographic detail finds its only analogue in the famous Ustiug Annunciation (now in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow) from St. George cathedral in Yuriev monastery (Novgorod) – 12th c. The detail implies the Sacrifice – voluntarily offered and accepted within the mystery of the hypostasis unity. The same topic is complemented on the one hand by the crimson red hank of yarn in the hands of the Holy Virgin, which is seen in liturgical poetry as a symbol of Christ’s flesh, and on the other, by the golden throne, compared to a sacrificial sanctuary.
The architectural elements behind the throne suggest simultaneously a palace and a temple and symbolically develop the idea of the Mother of God as the Church. The door to the right of the Holy Virgin is depicted with its curtain drawn in and represents the “Door of Salvation” which was opened after the Incarnation. The walled garden above it visualizes the poetic image from the Song of Solomon Book (4:12) – “a garden enclosed” is both a symbol of the Mother of God’s virginity and of the garden of Paradise.
The motifs of palace, temple, sanctuary, garden walls, towers, doors, and the Garden of Eden are combined with the intention to recognize Heavenly Jerusalem, the path to which opens at the moment of the Incarnation. The Biblical vision of it is what is probably suggested also by the rare depiction of the river, full of various types of birds and fish at the lower part of the composition.
The image of the Heavenly “pure river of water of life” (Ez. 47:1-12; Rev. 22:1) is naturally associated in liturgical texts with the traditional Mother of God metaphor of “life giving source”.
The movement of St. Archangel Gabriel’s figure is particularly interesting. He is both forward looking towards the Virgin and at the same time slightly turned in the opposite direction, thus reminding of the dancing maenads of Ancient Greek art. We come across a similar scheme of the archangel within the Annunciation compositions of: Sts. Silverless church in Kastoria (Greece) – 1180-1190; St. George church in Kurbinovo (Macedonia) – 1191; Panagia Arakiotissa church in Lagoudera (Cyprus) – 1192.
“Of Your own we have given you” – these were the words of King David’s prayer over all the building materials gathered by him for the erection of the Jerusalem Temple (1 Ch 29:14). So, with the icon, the question of the materials used has to do not only with their quality but most of all with their genuineness.
The material used as a basis for each of the icons is a well-dried lime or deal panel (board) of vertically joint three or four segments, 2.5 cm each. To avoid possible warping, the back of the panel is additionally strengthened by pegs (cross-wedged laths). The face of the board is indented. The so called “casket”, 2 cm. wide and about 0.5 cm. high, preserves the icon surface from mechanical damage during transportation.
The preparation of the base for gilding and painting undergoes several stages. The facial side of the icon is first coated with a thick solution of bone glue over which a thin linen cloth is placed. It serves as a kind of fixture for the primer, preserves it from the natural contraction and expansion of the wood.
The priming is the next important stage from the preparation of the icon panel. The primer is a weak solution of bone glue, chalk and yolk, mixed in a specific proportion; after straining, it is laid on the base a number of times. When the last layer dries up the primer if finely polished which guarantees the quality of the gilding. The gold sheets are glued to the surface with the help of a thin layer of bolus or poliment, which is activated after drying up with the help of a solution.
After gilding (this author works with entirely gilded bases) the graphic contours of the depictions are laid and the whole icon surface is polished. The technique of polishing the author uses requires a lot of practice time and was once emblematic for the icon painting school at St. Catherine monastery in Sinai.
It is closely connected to the popularization of the spiritual practices of hesychasm among the Sinai brotherhood and it expresses the aesthetics of the teaching: the nuclear theory about the hierarchic structure of Christian spirituality resonates in the gradation of the light effects in the gilding.
The coming together of soul and Divine Grace presents the highest degree of spiritual perfection, the brightening, and finds its visual expression in the circularly polished halos of the saints, equivalent in content and plastic expression to the other compositional symbols of the Uncreated Divine light – heavenly segments, radiance, rays, mandorlas, etc.
With the construction of the robes the author often uses the “probaster” technique which was used in the Middle Ages as a form of decoration with polychrome Roman sculpture and between the seventeenth and the nineteenth century it became extremely popular on the Balkans and in eastern Christian icon painting as a whole.
The icon is not just a masterpiece but it is also a sacred object because its true virtues are neither in the gilt effects, nor in the marvelous color choice, nor in the technical mastery; however high the artistic qualities themselves are, they are not enough to fully reveal the revelation of the liturgical image.