www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Icons & Iconography paper icons?

This has been probably addressed thousands of times but here it is again:
If a person cannot possibly afford the price of a hand-written icon, it is permissable to have a photo of an icon or icon print blessed and framed and then venerated as a holy icon?
Blessings!
Silouan, monk

Well, I have an icon print of Our Lady of Perpetual help, that came from the original St. Josephs in Toronto OH, it was used in the Church. So, I don't know, I just know - I love and treasure the history that it brings with it.

My Brother,

I can conceive of no earthly (or heavenly, for that matter) reason why it would not be permissable. Folks have spoken many times here as to having to take this approach due to the understandable costs involved in procuring a traditional icon.

Keep in mind, also that, while we typically think of painted icons on a wooden base, the Icons Not By Human Hands are on cloth. Our Ukrainian and Russian brethren have venerable traditions of embroidered icons. Hammered icons exist in both precious and base metals and mosaic and frescoed icons are found in several cultures - including some among the Byzantines. And, I think I've left out at least one other format.

My dear friend, Bob/Theophan wrote recently here as to his technique for affixing paper icons to a wooden backing and finishing them for protection - which would certainly add a more traditional touch to them, if you would like to do that.

Many years,

Neil

I have affixed photographs of more recent saints - those who actually were photographed - and affixed them to wood backings. Then I applied a clear, protective finish. A friend calls them photo icons. I suppose that's really what they are, although they are not produced like traditional icons.

Also, the Romanians painted their icons on glass, in reverse painting.

...Until forty or fifty years ago, Romanian houses in Transylvania villages were decorated with numerous icons, vividly colored, sometimes ten or more crowded on the same wall. The chromolithographs were still unknown in the villages; therefore it was the glass icon with its violent, but still appealing colors that felt right to the peasant. The Romanian icons on glass express the mentality and the sensibility of the traditional Romanian village community, reflect the spirit and the imagination of the peasant painter.

The peasant illustrated in the icons his own considerations about life and social justice, his own ethics and his idea of afterlife, the invisible world, inserting in this context, spontaneously, biblical stories or themes from The Old and New Testament in the only known reality, the Transylvanian village. ...
http://www.byzarticon.com/eng/storia2.htm

Ah, as soon as I saw this thread I thought "that's me!!" I've been printing out icons and affixing them to cardboard, but I like the idea of using wood and using a protective finish. Any recommendations on finish, and where do you get the wood-home depot?
Thanks!

Indigo

Often, I find wood in pre-cut sizes in the craft department at Wal-Mart. I do some minor sanding on it then use gold paint or walnut stain (whatever you like works) on the edges, then affix the image with decoupage medium. It makes a good clear coat, but some of the brands have to be wet sanded a bit and smoothed with #0000 steel wool to get a smooth finish. Sometimes I print the picture on paper, other times on a high-quality cotton paper. I have used brushed on varnish and spray varnish for protection, but it can also require some sanding. You do have to be sure the ink on the print is completely dry and cured before putting anything on it. Also, some inks and coverings are not compatible with each other.

Rose,

Thank you for the reminder about the reverse painting on glass - I knew that I had forgotten something. The links below are to a two part video on YouTube illustrating the technique.

Part I [youtube.com]

Part II [youtube.com]

Many years,

Neil

Cynthia,

You might want to take a look at this thread. It's the one I referenced earlier in which Bob describes his finishing technique - which I think is similar in many respects to what Charles described.

Many years,

Neil

Of course. There is nothing spiritual in the paint or wood.

The question I would ask following up on this quality of the paint and wood is this: if it is not the wood or paint that's spiritual, how critical is it that an icon be properly written?

I was wondering this when I saw an Our Lady of Perpetual Help with a Western style face. The icon or painting did have the symbols I recognized from the icon I am familiar with; the sandal, the direction of Child-Jesus' gaze, the coloring of the robe. But I was wondering if what I was looking at was a holy icon or a painter's interpretation of the original form.

I could have asked the priest of the monastery this question about the icon/painting, but he is not Eastern and I only remembered my thoughts on the matter when I was reflecting on Father John's comment about the nature of the wood and paint.

Terry

Terry,

I think (and this is just my personal, inexpert opinion - that the spirituality is in the prayerful fashioning of them - regardless of the media employed. Certainly, as well as the myriad forms that I described above, there will come the day (if it has not already) when a devout graphic artist will create iconography through the manipulation of pixels, with software being his palette, and will do so while fully adhering to the traditional iconographer's regimen of prayer, fasting, etc. Will the result be an icon? I'd venture that it will.

It is not the wood, not the egg tempera based paints, not the colors, not the "look" even that makes an icon worthy of veneration as such. In that catalogue of sites I once put together (illustrating what - maybe twenty "styles" of iconography?), there is incredible diversity. From the folk-art styles of the Czechs to the Renaissance-influenced styles of some Russian schools to the classic Greek styles and back to the more Western ones of the Belarusians - and every variation between - somes two opposed styles in a single culture, as with the "old" and "new" Coptic or the myriad Russian ones.

Most of us have pre-concieved notions, based usually on the culture, religious and/or ethnic in which we were formed, as to "what an icon should look like" and woebetide those who would attemmpt to foist on us iconography of another Church, ethnicity, nationality, culture, or style. We are as likely to term such (mere) "religious art" as we are to venerate it.

Over the years I have encountered Eastern and Oriental Christians, Catholic and Orthodox, who have turned away from involving icons in their prayer life because those of "their tradition" did not speak to them and it never occurred to them that they could look beyond that tradition. In raising this with them, I've convinced several to do so and watched them develop a spiritual bond that previously didn't exist - prominently displaying and venerating Ethiopian icons in an otherwise very Slavic home in one instance and very classically Byzantine icons created in the Greek style in an Armenian home in another. This is not abandonment - this is seeing "holy things" as "holy" because they touch your spiritual being, rather than that they are "our kind".

In that regard, most "western-style" iconography does not speak to me, but there are Western/Latin iconographers who write or paint (you pay your nickel, you pick your word - life is too short and precious for that argument) icons with all the degree of reverence that we typically expect of an iconographer. Are they then less an iconographer? Is a priest less a priest because he is of the Latin Church? Is a Catholic less a Catholic because he is of the Latin Church? Is an Orthodox less an Orthodox because he is of the Western Rite?

We can't deny that there now exists or, at the least is developing, a Western style of iconography and that it has chosen to apply itself not only to those whom "we" typically consider to be proper subjects of icons - namely "our" Saints - but to Western Saints and to historically Western depictions of the Theotokos. To some of "us" those may even be the manifestations that speak to our spirituality. And, as such is the case, we are uncharitably wrong when we dismiss our brethren who are so affected as latinized. Don't get me wrong, I don't want them enshrined in our temples, but if Ibrahim Haddad, Vladimir Gargarin, or Petros Pappadoulos wishes to build his icon corner around them, so be it. His spiritual needs and their fulfillment should be his guide in that decision.

There are already iconic images that cross the bounds - Our Lady of Perpetual Help, styled by a variety of patronages, is certainly one. The Albanian Patroness, Our Lady of Shkondra, is Our Lady of Good Counsel to the Italians and many other Westerners. Both East and West venerate Veronica's Veil and other manifestations not by human hands. There is a decided Eastern affection to the Tilma of Juan Diego and many Eastern Christians have no trouble terming it an icon.

Many years,

Neil

Father Silouan:

Father bless!!

On another thread I posted about taking icon prints and turning them into icons for use in prayer. At the time, I couldn't afford to spare the cash to buy anything else. So I put this method together thinking that God can make something beautiful and edifying out of a very little, and make poor materials brought together with love much more than the total of the parts.

I made several sets of Christ the Teacher and the Mother of God and gave them all away. Every one of them still has an honored place in the homes of the people I gave them to.

But I speak as an outsider, so you'll have to go to better sources than I for the answer to your question.

BOB