Preparing the wood of the cross

Purification - Preparing the Wood

Icons may be on walls, in fresco or mosaic, so that they form a sacred environment for the liturgy, or panel icons in church and home. The wooden panel has a particular ascetic significance - it is an extension of the wood of the cross, and the painter shares as s/he works the suffering of the Lord, who struggled to incarnat a new vision and path in human life. The iconographer is bound to the board, as to the cross, till the sign of the coming kingdom is made.

The wood is covered with cloth, which both reminds us of the bound Christ in the tomb and serves a practical purpose of counteracting the movement of the wood - as a natural material it responds to atmosperic pressures. This technique has its roots in the plastered linen of Egyptian burial shrouds. The board is then gessoed - glue and whiting is seived together and built up in an average of 8-12 layers. This gesso is the sign of a paradox - it both seals in the underlayers - as Christ was sealed in the tomb, and it forms the surface on which the icon - the sign of the new creation is to be made. For the iconographer this is a purifying, repetitive process, as is the Jesus prayer.

From Death To Life

When the gesso has been washed and sanded smooth, the first sign of resurrection begins! The gold goes on! Gold does not decay, so has come to represent the immutable mystery of the pre-eternal God. The gold, or at least a gold colured ground is used in most icons of Christ or the Virgin - light from light, God from God. However it is by no means used in every icon - when used it is in accordance with it’s spiritual value, and in the icon of a hermit, for example one may prefer to emphasise another value by the colour - such as ascesis.

Every part of the icon has gone through a death process. The wood has been cut, the flax has been pounded, the animal or plant which provided the skin has died, the metals have decayed and even the earth colours have been washed again and again - like a baptism! The icon shows the movement to resurrection. The first colours which go on are, as a general principle the darkest - not because of any gloominess, but to reflect the unfathomable mystery of God who is inaccessible in his essence and dark to our intellect.

Writing the word:
the face of Andrew the Apostle

Witness To The Incarnate Word

The lower layers of the icon are painted more broadly. In Russian technique the layers are often floated on - but very differently to water colour. The dry pigments are mixed with the yellow of egg and a little alcohol and vinegar, which gives them a brilliance and resonance not found in any other medium. The art of the iconographer is to increase that resonance to the maximum - sometimes bringing opposing colours into sharp conjunction - somewhat like the techniques of ecclesiastical embroidery, sometimes carefully building up innumerable layers of slightly changing grades of colour, so that the richness of the number of layers intensifies the resonance. It is an attempt to show the Spirit of God resonating through the physical container.

Finally, very concise lines are applied, which by their linear expression and repetition, similar to calligraphy, multiply the resonance. You have to know exactly what you are doing - precisely how you are going to ‘write’ each line. These lines have all the deliberateness of a credal statement. They are written as a confession of faith - a powerful witness and sign.