ICONS: THE WRITTEN IMAGE

Sacred Icons. Only mentioning them evokes exotic and charming suggestions, a way to live religion that is far from the modern concept only at first glance. Let’s find out all the secrets of this ancient and exciting art.

Holyart already talked about sacred icons in the past. How could it be otherwise? Few art displays can be compared to those representations, real expression of medieval religion, permeated with a deep symbolism that goes beyond the substance. In a previous article about Greek icons, we talked about how each detail in a sacred icon expresses a concept, a higher meaning. We described the creator of icons more like a writer than a painter, given the ability to link the constant references to evangelical episodes including spiritual messages hidden in each detail of the work. A sacred icon is the result of a mission that is theological before artistic.

Artisans and painters that master the art of icons use the ancient and strict rules of Byzantine iconography still today, following the techniques reported in the specific manuals, the hermeneia, which have to be followed verbatim. Each icon is unique, unrepeatable, and it draws its value exactly from this uniqueness.

What is an icon exactly?

It is a sacred representation painted on a table, typical of the Byzantine and Slavic art. The word ‘icon’ comes from the Russian ‘икона’, which comes from the ancient Greek εἰκών –όνος, from the verb eikénai, ‘resemble’, ‘look’. Another derivation is from the Byzantine Greek word eikóna, which can be translated as ‘image’.

In particular, the ancient Russian icons were usually reproduced on basswood, larch or fir tables. The necessary working to create the perfect base for sacred icons was long and arduous. In fact, the wood needed to be covered with multiple layers of rabbit-skin glue and chalk which were later smoothed with dried fish skin or sandpaper. The result was the so-called levaks, a smooth surface with no porosity, perfect to lay paint and gold plating. About colors, they were all natural, obtained from plants and minerals mixed with egg yolks. The frame was a fundamental element, because it was part of the painting as well, underlining the distance between earth and sky, between terrestrial and divine grounds. Even gold plating allowed obtaining amazing tridimensional effects.

Like Russian icons, also Romanian sacred icons come from the ancient Byzantine art. Their characteristics are warm and intense colors, and their characters are depicted with movable and human features. That makes them a bit closer to the Western sensitivity and aesthetic perception. They are painted on wooden or glass tables with tempera colors, embellished with fine decors in gold leaves.

How is the value of an icon assessed?

It’s not easy. We need to understand how to do that, or at least the basics of it, if we want to get closer to this wonderful world. Many websites sell sacred Icons without any warranty concerning their authenticity nor any explanation justifying their value.

When you evaluate a sacred icon, you need to keep in mind several parameters, such as the techniques used to make it, which ranges from a total handcrafting to silk-screen printing; the ‘school’ it comes from; the stroke of the artist; the size.

About techniques, we can easily sum up the current icons on the market as follows:

silk-screen printing icons
handmade sacred icons
hand painted icons according to the traditional method, with golden painted background (that is, no gold nor silver leaves)
hand painted icons according to the traditional method, with golden background made of a thin non-precious metal sheet (similar to gold or silver)
hand painted icons according to the traditional method and using a precious metal sheet (gold or silver)
About schools, the sacred icons on the market today come mainly from Russia, Greece (those are the two most popular and appreciated schools), but also from Romania.

The distinctive stroke of the artist is the main element in an icon, regardless of its origin or materials. In particular, it shows through the way the faces are painted, in the use of colors and light.

The sizes of the icons can be many, but usually these three formats are the most commons:

18 x 22 cm (7×8.5 inches)
22 x 32 cm (8.5×12.5 inches)
32 x 44 cm (12.5×17 inches)

This is a traveling icon, written on mother of pearl with an 84 grade silver rissa/okhlad.

The question is what makes an ICON different from a painting?

A saint’s icon can illustrate the story of his life in detail. Our reporter Ekaterina STEPANOVA asked the icon painter and teacher of St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Svetlana VASYUTINA, how we can tell by a saint’s sacred image what his occupation was and what he is famous for.

Notwithstanding Our Infirmities
The first question that an icon painter is often asked is how one can draw a saint one has never seen. When I graduated from the Surikov Institute of Art (Moscow), I was also tortured by this question. In hagiography, we find descriptions of many saints, for instance, a straight nose, a moustache, a black or a long beard… But there can be so many variants of a ‘long beard,’ how shall I understand what he really looked like? The answer is simple: it is the saint himself who helps the icon painter to determine the details. It is the only way. One is to read the hagiography, to pray to this saint, and then the sacred image will turn out correctly. If an icon painter paints an icon as a picture, trying to reflect a part of himself, his own feelings, his vision of the saint, he will fail. I remember when I was making a mosaic of Our Lady, it was not at once that the sacred image was shaped out. They told me to leave it as it was. But I could not stop until I suddenly felt that the image now was exactly what Our Lady wanted it to be. I won’t hesitate to say that it is the Holy Spirit who moves the icon painter. It is the Holy Spirit who draws the lines, chooses the colors.


There arises a second appropriate question. An icon painter is as sinful a man as any other, how can he draw with the Holy Spirit? This hard question is most of all acute for icon painters themselves. The only ‘way out of this situation’ is to fully realize one’s own passions, one’s numerous sins and one’s unworthiness, and pray to God asking for His help. I pray thus, ‘O Lord, you know I am unworthy. You know I can do nothing by myself. But I love people, I love You, O Lord! You do want people to pray to You, don’t You? Let me be your paintbrush. What do people care whether the paintbrush is plastic or wooden, if it is crooked or broken? But through me people will be able to see Your sacred image.’

Maybe I shouldn’t have disclosed the secrets of the icon painter’s inner life, but without this it is impossible to understand how sacred images appear. They come out in the very shape the saints want them to have. It happens not because of the icon painter’s virtues, but notwithstanding his infirmities.

Three Pokers in Hand

An icon painter must see to it that a person, seeing the icon, should understand what the saint is famous for, what his life was like. It is a hard task. The colors, the background, the clothes – all matter.

The icon painter’s task is to concentrate all the information about the saint (and this can be years or scores of years of ascetic life) in one little image that would reflect, as a symbol, all his lifetime. Often, the saints in icons would hold in their hands something they are celebrated for. For example, St. Sergius of Radonezh founded a monastery, therefore, he is drawn with the monastery on his palm. St. Great Martyr Panteleimon was a healer, and he holds a box with medicines in the icon. St. Andrei Rublyov is often portrayed with the Trinity Icon in his hands. Prelates and Evangelists are depicted with the Gospel in their hands. Holy Fathers often hold a rosary, like St. Seraphim of Sarov, or rolls with holy maxims or prayers, like St. Siluan Athonitul. Martyrs would hold a cross.


St. Prokopy of Ustug is portrayed holding three pokers in his hands. I was surprised to see this. I started reading his biography and found that St. Prokopy was ‘foolish in Christ,’ he would run about the town, rattling a poker in the air, or maybe even hitting people’s heads with it, and denounce people’s sins. Why three pokers? Icon painters told me that they draw three pokers to exaggerate the situation – it appears there is such a tradition! When I was working at the fresco with this saint in Optina Pustyn’ monastery, I painted every poker with different colors: the first one was green, the second one was red, and the third one was blue!

It is known that St. Martyr Christophor who lived in Egypt in the III century was very handsome. To flee temptations, he begged God to change his appearance, to make him repulsive. God granted his request. In icons, he is portrayed as having a dog’s head. I do not think he really had a dog’s head, though God can do anything, it is just to show that his appearance became ugly. They exaggerate this motive in icons in order to emphasize the saint’s deed and to focus the attention of the person praying before the icon.

The color in icons plays an equally important role as the things mentioned above. Red belongs to martyrs. Blue stands for wisdom. White symbolizes paradise and chastity. Green is the color of the Venerable Fathers. Golden symbolizes sanctity. A while ago, I was tortured by the question why it is golden. Once I was standing at a church, looking at the iconostasis. Suddenly, they turned off the electric lights, and only candles before the icons were burning. The golden traces were shining, giving back the light. It was as if not the candles but the halos were radiating light. I was amazed; the light seemed not material, not as comes from a candle or a lamp. The golden color shows the person painted in the icon was granted a different kind of light.




Colors in Icons

Red is the color of blood and sufferings, the color of Christ’s sacrifice. Martyrs’ clothes in icons are painted red. Red are the wings of archangels and seraphims who are close to God’s throne. Red is the color of Resurrection, of life’s victory over death. Sometimes they would even have red backgrounds symbolizing the triumph of eternal life.

White is the symbol of Divine light. It is the color of chastity, simplicity, paradise. In icons and frescos, saints and the righteous men usually wear white clothes. Babies’ swaddles and angels are also white.

Blue means the endlessness of the heaven, the symbol of eternal world. It also symbolizes wisdom. Blue is supposed to be the color of Our Lady who united in herself the earthly and the heavenly.

Green is the color of nature, of life, grass, leaves, bloom, and youth. Earth is painted green. The color would be present where life starts: in Nativity scenes. The golden shine of mosaics and icons is the magnificence of the Heavenly Kingdom and sanctity.

Purple or crimson is a very meaningful color in the Byzantine culture. It is the color of the King, the Sovereign, the Lord in Heaven, the emperor on earth. This color can be seen in Our Lady’s clothes as she is the Queen of Heaven.

Brown is the color of bare earth, dust, anything temporary and perishable. Mixed with the royal purple in Our Lady’s clothes, this color reminds us of human nature, subject to death.

A color which is never used in icon painting is grey. It is the mixture of black and white, evil and goodness, and this is the color of uncertainty, emptiness and non-existence.

Black is the color of evil and death. In icon painting, this color is used to paint caves, as symbols of a grave, and the hellhole. In some plots, it can be the color of secrecy. Black clothes of monks who departed from the usual life symbolize the rejection of worldly pleasures and habits – death in one’s lifetime, in a sense.

Skies and Earth in Icons

In icons, two worlds co-exist: the celestial and the earthly one. The celestial means the heavenly, the supreme one. The word ‘earthly’ in Russian originates from the word ‘vale, valley’ and means something below. This is the principle of depicting images in icons. Saints’ figures stretch themselves high, their feet hardly touching the ground. In icon painting it is called ‘pozyom’ (‘manure’) and is usually painted green or brown.

Where Does a Taxi in the Icon Come From?

In the background of a saint’s icon they often paint the monastery, the forest, the cave where the saint lived, or the place that he specially patronizes. The synaxis of Kiev Pechersk saints is painted against the background of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra; St. Maria of Egypt is painted against the background of a desert; St. Blessed Ksenia – against St. Petersburg and the church at Smolenskoe graveyard. There exists a well-known icon of St. John of Shanghai in which one can see a pavement and a taxi. A remarkable icon! Someone can get confused; but say, if many centuries ago they could paint a desert, why can’t we paint a taxi now? We live in a historical period of time, in San Francisco they have this kind of pavement and yellow taxicabs can be seen around the city.


Such literary details appeared in icons to make them more understandable. A while ago there were lots of illiterate people who could ‘read’ the hagiography in a condensed form in the icon. There started to appear icons with ‘brands,’ which means that around the saint’s sacred image there would be drawn pictures illustrating the brightest episodes of his or her life. The saint’s ascetic deeds, his martyrdom and death, all the story of his life would be told in ‘pictures’ in one and the same icon. In the brands to the image ‘The Synaxis of All the Saints who Shone in Russian Land,’ one can even see the Red Army men shooting new martyrs, these men having no halos, of course.

Past and Future in Icons

Often an icon illustrates the events of several days or even the whole lifetime of a saint. The icon ‘Kirik and Ulita’ (XVII century) tells the story of mother and son in detail. Holding up their hands in prayer, the martyrs call to Heaven where on His golden throne amidst clouds sits Jesus Christ. On the left, among arcs and columns (that means within buildings) one can see scenes of their deeds, miracles and their deaths as martyrs. Thus the icon illustrates the past and the future.



But if someone in an icon or a fresco is painted without a halo it does not necessarily mean that he is an ‘unfavorable personage.’ For instance, in Serbia and Greece there is a tradition to paint frescos of church wardens, the philanthropists, and the embellishers of the church or the monastery. The Saviour sits on His throne, Our Lady and John the Baptist next to Him, and following them in modern clothes are the church wardens, the princes, carrying their gift to God – their prayers for their whole nation. In the icon ‘The Joy of All Who Sorrow,’ there are paupers, cripples, the sick, the mourning ones surrounding Our Lady entreating Her for help and intercession; however, they are all depicted without halos. And in the icon ‘The Lord’s Entry into Jerusalem,’ they depict playing children who are overwhelmed with joy, throwing up their clothes, pushing each other, with their shoelaces undone, with their hair unkempt, the donkey trotting over someone’s foot. It is done so as to make the spectator at least emotionally respond to what he or she sees. Naturally, it is the external, but through this there can appear the internal, the more profound, the spiritual.

Translated from the Russian by Olga Lissenkova, edited by Yana Samuel

There is a tradition according to which an icon painter must have an icon of the Savior in front of his eyes when he is painting an icon of a male saint, and of the Mother of God when painting an icon of a female saint. This can be explained by the fact that the icon represents a person in his or her God-like, transformed state.

This is what Leonid Uspensky says about it in his book The Theology of the Icon:

An icon is an image of a man in whom the grace of the Holy Spirit, which consumes all passions and sanctifies him, abides. Therefore, his body is depicted as essentially different from the ordinary corrupt flesh of man. The icon is a sober and spiritual experience-based transmission of a certain spiritual reality, completely devoid of any extravagance.

The icon shows us the transformed man. According to the Bible, man was created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Genesis 1:26). The image of God in man was distorted after the Fall. Thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit, however, the image of God in its original beauty can be restored inside man, but man himself must also take ascetic effort. An Orthodox icon becomes, to some extent, a manual on asceticism: icon painters consciously paint the arms and legs of the saints narrower and the facial features more elongated, which, to some extent, conveys those changes in the transformed flesh that occur through the ascetic feat and the power of the Holy Spirit.

If we compare the image of a human body on paintings of the Renaissance and on icons, the difference is obvious.

On most icons, the body is covered with garments that merely symbolically indicate it. There are exceptions, however, when the body is depicted almost completely naked, but in these exceptions it lacks those bodily characteristics that could cause the viewer to have passionate thoughts or arousal. The image on the icon is devoid of any visual appeal, it shows not a process, but rather the result itself: a person is depicted as not struggling with passions but as having already defeated them, not as being transformed, but as having been transformed. Therefore, another characteristic of the icon is that it is not dynamic, but static (except for the hagiographic stamps). Saints are never painted half-face: their heads are almost always full-face, or, if the plot requires it, three-quarters-face. Persons who are not worshiped, negative characters (sorcerers, Judas at the Last Supper, etc.) may be portrayed half-face. Animals (a donkey on which Christ enters Jerusalem, horses on the icon of Sts. Boris and Gleb) are always depicted half-face.

Another indication of the hallowed state of a person on the icon is that icon painters refrain from portraying any bodily defects that the person had when he was alive: for example, a blind person is depicted with his eyes open, so the icon of St. Matrona of Moscow with closed eyes is not entirely correct. Or, if the saint lacked one hand, the icon will represent him with both hands; if he wore glasses, he will be depicted without them. According to the teaching of the Church Fathers, people will get their former bodies after the resurrection, but they will be renewed and transfigured. Traditionally, icons show the dead, rather than the blind, with closed eyes: the Virgin in the scene of the Dormition, the Savior in the tomb or on the cross.

The icon does not depict pain and suffering in such a way as to cause sympathy – it has no such purpose. It should not emotionally affect the viewer; it is alien to emotions or tears. Therefore, for example, a Byzantine icon of the Crucifixion represents Christ as dead rather than in agony, in contrast to Western images. Another example is the saints during their tortures – their faces are devoid of the expression of pain and suffering. Nor do they express any kind of emotions.


The face becomes the focus of the icon in terms of its content and meaning. It is actually painted at the very end. First, an icon painter paints everything else: the background, the clothes, the setting. The background and the like are painted in several but not many layers, while the face (including hands that have special expressiveness on the icons) is painted in many layers, gradually moving from dark to light. The face was always treated with special care, usually painted by the master painter, whereas his pupils or apprentices could paint the rest of the icon. The painting of faces was particularly valuable. Eyes become the spiritual center of the face, looking not directly or away from the viewer, but a little “above” him, not into his eyes but right into his soul.

The basis of all life of the Church is the decisive and all-determining miracle of the incarnation of God and the sanctification of man. It is the icon that bears witness to the victory of man over all corruption and decay — a testimony of another plane of existence and the perspective of his relationship with the Creator.