What is an Icon?

Before I say anything else, let me emphasize that iconography and the Byzantine painting style do not equate with each other, and are not mutually inclusive. Not everything painted in the Byzantine style is iconographic, not all icons are painted in the Byzantine style; and to add to that, icons do not have to be flat, or necessarily have to be hand-painted in tempera paint either.

So what is an icon? If you want a short answer, skip to the last paragraph. Otherwise, read on.

There are three main schools of thought regarding what makes an icon an icon: the Romanticistic perspective, the Patristic perspective, and the perspective of pious tradition.

In the Romanticistic perspective, an icon is a visual language that expresses hidden meanings. An icon's true essence is a "window" that makes use of a canonized tradition of symbols to convey the truths of the Kingdom. It is in this context that some iconographers prefer to say that they "write" their icons instead of "paint," because there is always woven into the icon a story meant to be taught and evangelized. From my exposure to iconographers, this is probably the more wide-spread perspective.

On the other hand, the Patristic perspective focuses on the human external form. Unlike in the Romanticistic perspective, an iconographer does not seek to define sanctity and heavenly glory—concepts that human art will always fail to justly depict. Instead, through iconography, he seeks to present the historical existence of the prototype: Christ, Mary, and God's holy men and women. To a patristic iconographer, the only two things that compose the icon are the form and inscription—the two elements that make the icon identifiable as being taken from the prototype. As for everything else—style, color, posture, patterns and borders, hairstyles, portrayal of objects, among others—it is up to the iconographer and the culture of his catered crowd to express. The purpose of iconography, in this case, is presence. By creating icons, an iconographer seeks to fixate a bond between the person in the image and the viewer of the icon, and unite them into the same space and time, similarly as to how we remember Christ in the Eucharist.

The perspective of pious tradition is a mixture of the Romanticistic and Patristic perspectives, and is heavily influenced by the laity's understanding of the faith and of the world around them. The iconographer pulls together elements of Church tradition and iconographic tradition (they are definitely not the same thing) to provide the Church a symbol of the prototype's ecclesiastical presence. The priority of icon painting is to achieve that presence, but the iconographer sees that every icon has the potential to teach and evangelize. Icons do not always have logical or chronological sense, nor do they have to, as long as the need for presence and evangelization is met. John the Forerunner holding a diskos of the naked infant Christ, a Eucharistic table presided over by two Jesuses, an ascetic man living atop a pillar, the Theotokos with three hands: none of these examples appeal to realism or earthly logic. Icons have their own unique logic. However, the compilation of symbolism provides a surreal, dream-like, and heavenly setting that complements the liturgies of the Church, and the prayers of the domestic family.

The three schools have very different perspectives of what an icon is, and unfortunately, iconography is heavily glorified and romanticized by well-meaning zealous Christians and enthusiasts of art. What we're sure about the nature of icons is that it is the visual manifestation of the ecclesiastical, theological, and artistic understanding of the Church evolved into its own section of Church tradition. In other words, they are Christian pictures, and we use them to decorate our churches, aide our prayer lives, and make heaven more visually present on earth. When I paint icons, I tend to have a strong sense of Patristic perspective, but I follow traditional external forms not because it shows exactly how the saints look like. Various iconographic traditions even disagree on external form. I draw them according to tradition as that is how the prototype is recognized by the militant Church on earth. It's easy to recognize an image of Jesus that follows traditional external form, with or without inscription—long hair, a two-pointed beard, a cruciform halo. Saint Peter? Gray hair, bushy beard. St. Mary Magdalene? Hair coming out from beneath the veil. It's easier to pray before an icon one recognizes. And just as in the Patristic perspective, my goal is to provide a recognizable presence of the holy people of God, and invite the earthly Church to make a true and living union with them in the same space and time.