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Concerning "Traditional" Icons vs Paintings

cyril
edited July 2014 in Faith Issues
Often in contemporary Orthodox parlance one is bound to hear that Icons are "Windows to Heaven", or that they should be "Non-Naturalistic" because the "naturalistic" style is a "Western" corruption of the "Spirituality of Icons". One might also hear the idea that Icons are "Written" not "Drawn or Painted". These commonly held ideas concerning the "Theology of Icons" often refer to the teachings of Dr Leonid Ouspensky who penned a book on the subject but applied some nationalistic ideas to the theology. Dr. Ouspensky also was the teacher of Dr Isaac Fanous and both wrote during a time when Orthodox identity was being defined in opposition to the "West".

Here's an Orthodox theological reflection on the commonly held concepts concerning the Theology of the Icon. This reflection also characterizes how healthy critical assessment of the past can raise the theological bar for the Church...or at least ask if certain assumptions need revisiting.

Redefining the Icon

Excerpt:

The early twentieth century saw increasing interest in stylistically “traditional” iconography. This included more than a new approach to painting icons which rejected the naturalism found in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, replacing it with “revivalist” imitations of Late- and Post-Byzantine and fourteenth- through midsixteenth- century Russian styles (e.g. the icons of Fotis Kontoglou, Leonid Ouspensky, and Georgii Krug, among others). Traditionalism was also new because – for the first time in Orthodox iconology – its stylistic development was ideologically justified. leading to a new genre of theological writings about “traditional” Orthodox iconography. 

Furthermore, by identifying a primary theological locus of the icon with the style of the icon, these writers condemn stylistic innovation as a theological departure from orthodox Christianity. To this day, the writings of Florensky, Ouspensky, and Kontoglou continue to have “canonical” status among most Orthodox Christians...

As a result of the wide acceptance of their views, many Orthodox Christians still define icons based on style and consider stylistic innovation in Orthodox iconography as a heterodox departure from tradition. Consequently, the Orthodoxy of other forms of iconographic innovation (e.g. compositional innovation, programmatic innovation, theological innovation, etc.), though rarely discussed, is often regarded with skepticism as well.

Comments

  • cyril
    edited November 2014
    Was thinking about this Topic and I wonder how photos of contemporary saints are to be regarded? Or perhaps Icon reproductions on Cards and Calendars?
  • cyril
    "...if style is neither a useful criterion for distinguishing what should be considered an authentically Orthodox icon, what is? From the perspective of the Church, this question must be answered not aesthetically, but theologically. St John of Damascus explains that “What the book does for those who understand letters, the image does for the illiterate; the word appeals to hearing, the image appeals to sight; it conveys understanding… who will not say that these images are not loudly sounding heralds?” Just as with any other theological text, icons must be read. This must be a process of exegesis, an act of reading and interpreting the icon a s a text, rather than a process of eisegesis, an act of reading what one wants to find in an icon (e.g. icons have no shadows). Just as with any other text, the question of an icon’s orthodoxy or heterodoxy is a question of its harmony or dissonance with the truth revealed to the Church through the opening of Scriptures and the Apostolic kerygma. The question is not simply how icons look, but what do they say?

    Yet, if the theological locus of the icon is not its style, what is it? Where precisely does one encounter the theological word of the icon, if not in its style? Just as with the written word, the theological content of the icon is to be found in what the icon says, and not merely in how it says it. While the handwriting or font of a text, as well as writing style (e.g. voice, genre, tone, etc.), is essential to the successful communication of the content of a written text, these outward forms are not typically equated with the ultimate meaning of a text. "


    Can the same be said about hymns?
  • katanikhoroskatanikhoros
    Yes. The exact same can be said about hymns.
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