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”.
This virtuously painted Contemporary Antique Masterwork (55 x 40 cm. approx.) was inspired by two medieval monuments from two different artistic centers. Moreover, they are set more than a century apart in time. In its basic schema the present icon follows the composition of the big church icon of Transfiguration (184 x 134 cm.) painted in 1403 for the Spas Transfiguration Cathedral in Pereslavl-Zalessky. It is today a part of the State Tretyakov Gallery collection in Moscow with No. 12797.
The original icon presents the events on Tabor (Mt. 27:198, Mr. 9:2-9, Lk. 9:28-36) in a rather detailed narrative composition. The contemporary version is, however, much more succinct in its presentation. Our iconographer has intentionally chosen to leave out the episode with the Prophets Moses and Elijah, who come on clouds accompanied by angels, and the one with Christ and His apostles climbing and then descending the mountain because these scenes partially distract the observer from the main event.
Setting himself the aim to present as impressively as possible Christ’s Transfiguration, our icon painter turns to an earlier monument from the Sinai monastery of St. Catherine – a Transfiguration icon in the iconostasis beam with scenes from the life of the Virgin and the Dodekaorton from the last quarter of the twelfth century. From this model he takes not so much the form of the mandorla and the rays but the technique they follow.
Recreating the dynamic, active presence of the Transcendent, this technique is successfully combined with the “probaster” technique, which the author has used for the development of Christ’s robe. Both convincingly impress on the observer the allusion for the ultra sensual light which pierces through the visual forms.
This is the light of the Revelation of God’s presence in the world. Interpreting the events on Tabor, St. John Damascene identifies the apostles Peter, Jacob, and John with earthly existence, Prophet Elijah with the Heavenly world, and Prophet Moses with the underworld. Thus the rays that stream from Christ, he says, enlighten the whole Universe (Transfiguration Canon, chant 9). “And when the saints contemplate this Divine light within themselves”, the most prominent theoretician of hesychasm, St. Gregory Palamas, reasons about the Tabor exegesis, “they see the vestments of their deification”.
The many layered semantics of this composition predetermines the development of its iconography. The earliest known model is from the mosaic decoration of the Ravenna basilica San Apollinare in Classe – mid 6th c. It develops the story in the typical allegorical way of early Christian art and the image of Christ is replaced by a Cross, while the three apostles are presented as lambs.
“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.