Iconography, Day 4: Silence

The mouths of icon figures are intentionally made small in proportion to the rest of the face. That is because icons are silent. Their wisdom is beyond words. The icon speaks to us through light.  Therefore, the eyes are proportionately large – because it is universally accepted that the eyes are windows to the soul.  Icons are frequently referred to as “windows” – as in, the gateway to a world beyond our human understanding.

The blank gesso board represents inner silence, emptiness, and potential. It is white and empty, and yet it paradoxically contains all colors. On this emptiness we place pigments made of natural earth elements.  Natural pigments have crystals which give off light.  Prismatic facets catch light, just as the soul gathers experience and reflects facets of itself into the world.  Synthetic pigments cannot do this.  With the application of color, we 'open' the light within the gesso board.

Tempera painting is the earliest type of painting known to man. The wall paintings of ancient Egypt and Babylon are tempera, as are many of the paintings of Raphael, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and many others. The pigments are collected from nature: earth, plants, minerals, and even insects.  These pigments are mixed with the contents of an egg yolk sac, the symbol for life and creation.  Our pigments for the class had already been gathered and neatly processed into powders for our convenience, though a fellow student brought many cartons of eggs from her backyard chickens for the mixing of our paints.  

Writing lines around the eyes and lips and other facial features is about establishing order. Once order is established and color is applied, then light can 'pour' into the icon.

The practice of “praying with icons” is not a matter of standing or kneeling before it and speaking a rehearsed set of words. The practice involves attendance – that is, attendance – simply being before the icon and allowing it to speak to us. The icon is there to quiet and calm the mind, to bring stillness into everyday life.  Often in stillness, words come . . .

When I was in Russia five years ago, I saw more icons than I could appreciate or comprehend.  Many which I saw, I'm sure, were written by the famous Russian iconographer Andrei Rublev from the 14th century.  Unfortunately I had no understanding of iconography or of Andrei Rublev at the time, and so I most likely passed right by those treasures without knowing -- but I will always remember the overwhelming stillness of those vast rooms.