Icons

Icons are different from Western religious art in that we use our crucifixes, statues, and pictures as reminders of our Lord, his mother, and the saints. They remind us to live our lives as faithful followers of Christ and to pray and imitate their holy lives. We don’t usually think of these religious objects as being a way of bringing us into relationship with the holy person they represent. But that is exactly what icons are intended to do.

They are not simply reminders or religious decorations but a symbolic spiritual presence of the person or the event portrayed. So when we come before the icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, in the Orthodox understanding we’re coming before the Blessed Mother; the icon is a “window” or “doorway” into her presence. Of course the icon of wood and paint is not the Blessed Mother, but its purpose is to place us in her presence. 

Writing the Icon

When we consider the statues and paintings displayed in our churches and homes, it’s easy to see that they vary in style and interpretation because they are the creative work of the artists portraying them. For example, we can identify paintings of the Blessed Virgin as the work of Raphael or Michelangelo because of the artist’s unique style and signature. This is also true of the more humble crucifixes, statues, and religious pictures we have in our churches and homes. They are the unique work of those who created them, even if we do not know the artist.

However, because they have a symbolic and spiritual purpose, icons are painted, or written as the Orthodox say, according to set guidelines that determine everything about them. Iconographers, those who write (paint) icons, contribute nothing of their own unique creativity to the image, nor do they sign the icon as their own work of art. 

We speak of an icon’s being written rather than painted because it is a visual Bible. In other words, the icon presents in image form what we read in written form in the text of the Bible. For example, the icon of the Annunciation to Mary by the Archangel Gabriel is the “painted text” of the “printed text” that we read in the Gospel of Luke 1:26–38. Just as the scribe faithfully copies the words of the gospel, so the iconographer faithfully copies the icon of the Annunciation, introducing nothing of her own creativity into the icon. In this sense, the icon is written and not painted, for it is the visual Word of God.