Iconography, Day 2: Containment

Chaos will never be overcome. That is a truth. We strive continuously to bring order and understanding to chaos – but it will never be overcome.

That is why the halo goes beyond the border of the recessed center of the gesso board – to remind us that, although universal truths are well-ordered and dependable, disorder and chaos will always be in the wings. That does not mean that chaos will prevail – unless we allow it to – it means that chaos will always be there. Iconography is about bringing order out of chaos.

In the Tenderness Icon, Mary inclines her head to the child and the child presses his face against the cheek of his mother. My favorite part of this icon is the way the tiny hand clasps the headdress of his mother. Someone asked me why, and I said, “Because that’s what babies really do.”

There was a discussion about the way the mother looks somewhat sorrowful, as though she knows what is going to happen to her child. I also note that the child looks compassionately at his mother, as though he knows what his mother must face. When I think of young men who have died in wars – millions of them over numerous centuries – my first thought goes to the mothers of those men. They are the ones who brought them to life and must carry the pain of death.

Everything in iconography is representative of something, and that’s why the rules can’t be changed or invented. The blue undergarment represents humanity. The red/purple outer garment represents the divine. The clay ‘first wash’ represents the earth from which we have emerged, and gold represents the transformation to which we aspire.

Books have been written about the position of the hands and fingers in iconography. I know there is a deep meaning in my attraction to the tiny hand grasping at the veil.