The Brilliance of Eternal Values

"By using [the perspective of importance], Byzantine painting accentuated the holiness of the persons represented.  Their individual and temporal aspects were thus clothed by the brilliance of eternal values, and the image itself receives a function other than that of a simple drawing.

The way that an icon grasps, understands, and draws its subject cannot be based just on physical vision but must be interpreted by thought.  In the same way, its optical effect undergoes a change; by enlarging the proportions, the main person seems to move out from the interior of the icon toward the spectator.  The focus is thus inversed.

Pere Egon Sendler SJ. 'The Icon: Image of the Invisible

 

For an iconpainter, the representational conventions of Byzantine painting are so familiar  that it is easy (at least for me) to lose sight of how peculiar those conventions are that depict the human form in space.   I've been sketching out the cartoon for an icon of St. Anne, with her daughter, Mary, the Mother of God and Mary's son, Jesus.  I first encountered this image of mother, daughter and son in the work of my teacher, Pere Igor (Egon) Sendler, in the photograph of a fresco he painted in the 1980's.  As in many icons, Mary is depicted both as the Mother of God (that is to say, as an adult woman with her son, Jesus), and as the youthful daughter of St. Anne, symbolized by her diminutive stature in comparison with her mother.  

Which is a reminder for me of two things.  First, that drawing is always a way of seeing and thinking about the visible and invisible realities that we seek to perceive, comprehend and depict.  Second, that when it comes to what Pere Igor speaks of as those realities that are "clothed by the brilliance of eternal values", our ordinary, natural ways of sight and perception are inadequate to fully represent the subtle and elusive mystery of a world tranfigured by divine Grace.  Paradoxically, the more painstaking the attempt to enclose such realities in the garb of naturalistic realism, their luminous brilliance simply fades from sight.  

The Icon and the Belt-Sander

The Centre d'Etudes Russes, Meudon 

Twenty-three years ago this week, my wife Paula and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary in        Paris at the Centre d'Etudes Russes .  We were there with four friends and students from the Mt.Angel Iconography Institute.  We were there to study with Fr.Egon Sendler SJ (Pere Igor) as students in his basic course.

What a remarkable time that was!  Pere Igor's wisdom, enthusiasm and joy was inspiring,  I learned so much from him each day in the old German barracks (erected during the Occupation ) he'd converted into a classroom and a studio.  I chose the icon of St.Elijah ascending to heaven as the image I would paint.  He would, typically, inspect my drawing, pronounce it "Marvellous! " or Terrific!" And then proceed to erase half the drawing.  Usually he said very little to me, except a few imperatives such as "Simplify!" "Find the essential form!"  

When, after two weeks of diligent work, I completed the icon, he singled it out for effusive praise.  He held it up before the class and commented that he was a mere artisan, but that I was a true artist!  Then he declared in a very lighthearted and comical tone, that the only thing necessary to make it perfect was a belt-sander!  As you might have expected, this got a big laugh from the class.

While I hadn't really taken his artisan/artist comment seriously at all, I was perplexed and hurt (crushed, if truth be told) that he would say, even in jest, that a belt-sander would improve an icon I'd spent so much time and effort bringing to completion.  And which, in my (unspokem) estimation, surpassed the work of anyone else in the class, including, (I'm embarassed to admit) even the work of my master, Pere Igor.

I realized that shrewd spiritual father that he was, he had intuitively grasped my secret sin (hidden, if not from him and my fellow students, then from myself.)  That sin was pride, of course, pride in my ability as an artisit, by which I sought to prove to God (and anyone else who might be interested ) that  I was a worthy person deserving of admiration and praise.

It wasn't the icon that required the belt-sander,  it was me!  The carapace of pride, which was hardening around my heart, needed to be humbled, to be scraped away.  I realized that whatever I managed to accomplish as an iconpainter was nothing , rubbish, actually, to quote St.Paul, compared the icon God had created me to be, being brought to perfect (still a daily struggle) by Christ Jesus.

Which is the only icon that for iconpainters (and everyone else) matters in the end.