Day 2: Tracing

First thing's first. Icons are not art. I am not showing off my artistic eye and putting it on display in a gallery. The roots of iconography come from Judaism where it is forbidden to make graven images of God. With this in mind, the goal of an icon is not to represent an actual representation of the image (what s/he actually looked like), or convey the artist's heart's desire or meaning. The image is made to invoke the life and act(s) portrayed. Let us consider the words from the Council of Nicea:

"...so much the more will beholders be aroused to recollect the originals and to long after them, and to pay to the images the tribute of an embrace and a reverence of honour, not to pay to them the actual worship which is according to our faith, and which is proper only to the divine nature...For the honour paid to the image
passes to its original, and he that adores an image adores in it the person depicted thereby…"¹


To recap-- iconography is not to be used as art, that you look at and put in a gallery, nor is it to be worshiped.  (All protestants repeat this six times before continuing to read.)

In this way, then, we capture the image in such a way that we purposefully neglect our knowledge of proportion and perspective. This is distorted to remind us that the image we see is not the person, that we are not to dwell over the beauty of their eyes. We see this image as a bearer of the depicted, a window to the divine. Now some icons represent Christ, the Holy Mother, or other saints.  The icon I will be walking you through is of the story of the three visitors to Abraham, found in Genesis 18:1-15. In iconography and in traditional interpretation, this passage lends itself to identifying the three angels as the trinity. I will be assuming this interpretation and so depicting it as seen in the Icon to the right.  

Since this is not a display of my own art, I will be, quite literally, reproducing the form and structure as precisely as possible. So, my first step is to trace the image to the board. 

A Song of Creation (Benedicite, omnia opera Domini)

Glorify the Lord, all you works of the Lord,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
In the firmament of his power, glorify the Lord,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, you angels and all powers of the Lord, 
O heavens and all waters above the heavens.
Sun and moon and stars of the sky, glorify the Lord,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, every shower of rain and fall of dew, 
all winds and fire and heat. 
Winter and Summer, glorify the Lord,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever. 
Glorify the Lord, O chill and cold,
drops of dew and flakes of snow.
Frost and cold, ice and sleet, glorify the Lord,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, O nights and ays, O hining light and enfolding dark.
Storm clouds and thunderbolts, glorify the Lord, 
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
(Song of the Three Young Men, 35-51, courtesy of The Night Offices, by Phyllis Tickle)


1. Henry Bettenson & Chris Maunder, Documents of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 130