"Like the church’s preaching of the word, icon painting makes use of its own principles. It consciously submits to its own rules and thus renounces much that is essential for profane painting. So, it rejects what the world considers to be the natural, or central perspective, which issues from the standpoint of the beholder, and chooses what can be considered the un-artistic reverse perspective, which forces the beholder to surrender his own standpoint, his sense of distance.
The divergence of lines into ‘infinite space’ is a common technique used by iconographers. Instead of the creating distance the Icon ‘meets the viewer’. According to art historian Solrunn Nes, ‘It is as if the spectator is being looked at by the person in the portrait...the icon is subject to neither the laws of nature nor the reason of man. The icon is thus no illusion of the physical, visible world, but a vision of the spiritual, invisible world.’"
I painted my experience first. I certainly wasn't conscious of "reverse perspective" or "infinite space" when I was painting my safe place. I just painted what I knew. When challenged, these things came to consciousness (almost a year ago!) but even then I did not have the same words as Fr Gabriel Bunge (according to this guy) to describe what I was painting. I certainly did not draw the parallels between Rublev's invitation and mine until now. I love the similarities: invitation, intimate communion, open to all, sharing, safety, connection, timelessness, meeting the viewer wherever they are at, not about the real world, vision of the spiritual, etc. Do we only view these paintings or are we able to accept our place in them? (Can you? Will you?)
Naive, organic experience is important because of what it teaches us. God forbid our experience as man (or with linear, learned perfectionism) should keep us from (worshiping, conveying, experiencing) Him! If you want to paint, paint. If you want to sing, sing. If you want to dance, dance. If you want to believe, believe. Do not wait until you "know how".
2 comments:
Thanks for sharing this little lesson. I have always been glad that I went to hear that iconographer speak at the Wichita Art Museum a few years back. I had always been drawn to iconic images, but did not know why because I had always just looked at it as an art critic would look at a painting. I was not particularly impressed with their ability to paint. You helped explain it even better. Hmmm. I think I need an icon in this house, don't you? Now I really wish I would have enrolled in that icon class at the Catholic Life Center last year.
Thanks Mel. This is a great post and great reflections.
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