Greek Church Shows Icons And Their Roles
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By Lisa Rauschart
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
"If icons tell you anything, they tell you if you want to get close
to God you have to be quiet," says icon collector Daniel Callahan of
Washington, who has been gathering these religious images from around
the world for the past 20 years. "Each one tells that same story but in
a different way."
Before there was art there was the image. Existing outside the
rules of perspective or line, the earliest images of Christ, Mary and
the saints were more evocative than representative, more archetype than
art. Even now, icons of the Eastern Orthodox churches can stir more
emotion than they can admiration for the artist's skill. Apart from time
or space, they beckon the viewer inward, to a world of contemplation,
transformation and, ultimately, peace.
Those who seek that interior peace can immerse themselves in the
sublimity of today's iconic art, as more than 200 of these paintings —
some by local iconographers — come to Washington from around the world
for a show later this month.
The exhibit, at Sts. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church in
Northwest, brings together icons from several different Orthodox
traditions, including the Russian, Coptic, and Ethiopian Orthodox
churches. The Greek Orthodox Church is represented as well, with icons
from such influential artists as Christy John Chakos and two-time
Fulbright scholar Thomas Xenakis.
The Eastern Orthodox Church used icons extensively after the Roman
Emperor Constantine transferred the capital of the Roman Empire to the
city of Constantinople in 330. Wherever Byzantine influence was felt, so
was the impact of what the Greeks called the eikon, or the image.
Growing out of the mosaic and fresco traditions, these images
accompanied Byzantine expansion into Serbia, Russia and the Middle East,
providing effective and cogent evidence for conversion.
Among the two dozen icons Mr. Callahan plans to show at the exhibit
is one a friend brought back for him from Ethiopia, a land that became
Christian in 324, long before Europe's conversion. A modern piece, made
within the past 10 years, "The Story of Menelek" is painted on animal
skin. It tells of Menelek, the son of King Solomon and the Queen of
Sheba, who brought the ark of the covenant to Ethiopia.
The icon shows the effects of water damage, but its meaning is
clear. The piece combines the bold colors characteristic of African
culture with the distinctive flatness of Byzantine and Coptic icons.
While Mr. Callahan's Ethiopian icon is relatively new, an icon
gives a feeling of timelessness, an impression of space that exists
outside the confines of the frame. At times, icons proved so powerful
that they generated a controversy of their own in the 8th and 9th
centuries, after a group of icon-haters — the iconoclasts or
icon-breakers — became concerned that icons were being used as objects
of worship, rather than vessels for veneration. The result: smashed
images and destroyed icons throughout the Eastern world.
But that same power is why iconographers — those who make icons —
and even many collectors refer to them as something more than just art.
"It breaks my heart to see icons hanging in museums when they
should be venerated in churches," says Mr. Callahan, who is not
Orthodox. "These images are very powerful things."
• • •
Many people are more familiar with icons in computer usage than
they are with the term as a religious device. Yet religious icons
function in much the same way as their computer namesakes.
Computer-literate people would never confuse the little pictures on the
desktop with the real things, but they recognize the desktop icon as
something that connects to something else. In much the same way,
religious icons function not as literal representations of a particular
religious figure, but as a means of connection to something greater.
"They give you a sense of the eternal imperishable," says Mr.
Chakos, an artist living in the District.
Trained at the Art Students League in New York City, and in Paris,
Mexico City, Italy and Greece, he has taught art at the National
Cathedral School and has given workshops at the Smithsonian. He just
turned 80 and has been making icons and working in other media since his
days as an art student.
But in iconography, as Mr. Chakos is quick to point out, the
process is as important as the product. Often, the art of iconography is
referred to as "theology in color." For iconographers, the work is more
a "collaboration with God" than it is an individual effort.
It is a collaboration that begins with prayer.
"Of course, you always start with prayer," says Mr. Chakos. "You
have to be in the right frame of mind to make an icon."
Because icons are considered spiritual expressions with little
opportunity for interpretation, many iconographers (a word that combines
the Greek for "image" and the Latin for "writer") prefer to say that an
icon is written and not painted, that they are in effect "taking
dictation" from a higher power.
Unlike a secular painting, an icon is made — or written — using an
unchanging series of steps. These are the canons of iconography: prayer,
the association of certain colors with certain saints, and an
arrangement of figures based on importance and significance.
The result is a stylized portrait, with elongated torsos and flat
frontal views that can seem strange at first to those more acquainted
with Western religious art. But most icons contain at least the seed of
a recognizable figure, which seems to glow from within the frame.
"Things come to you as you work, " says Mr. Chakos. "You see how
things unfold, and you are not even aware of how you did what you did."
One of Mr. Chakos' renderings of the Virgin and child came to him
one day as he was recalling an incident that happened to him during
World War II.
"I had been shot accidentally and had already had the last rites,"
he remembers. "I remember seeing people standing around me, people I had
known who had died. And there was one lady who was mixing something in a
cauldron. She kept saying it wasn't my time yet."
That woman became the face of the Virgin of Mr. Chakos' full-length
icon, which hangs in his front porch. It and perhaps nine other of his
icons — including "St. Peter," "Encaustic Christ" and "St. Catherine" —
will be shown in the upcoming exhibition.
• • •
For Mr. Xenakis, creating art is part of a journey — "toward
theosis, my unification with God, and eternal life," as he puts it.
The artist, who lives in Annandale, came to the Washington area in
1998. He teaches drawing and painting at the Corcoran College of Art and
Design, at Marymount University in Arlington and at the Northern
Virginia Community College in Annandale, and has been working in both
sacred and secular genres for many years.
Among the 10 works he will exhibit at the show are "St. John the
Baptist," "St. Peter," "St. Patrick" and "The Crucifixion."
A Fulbright Scholar to Greece in research scholarship and an
artist-in-residence in 1994 and 1995, and 2000 and 2001, he studied and
worked with traditional Byzantine media such as egg tempera, mosaic,
egg-oil emulsion, wax encaustic and precious metals. He was trained in
part on the Holy Mountain, Mount Athos, the center of Orthodox
monasticism, and works on sacred liturgical icons to perfect the
techniques.
As a contemporary artist Mr. Xenakis, 46, is unusual, using the
media of the Byzantine era within his secular works, which deal with
issues of faith in multicultural American society.
• • •
Iconographer Evelyn Rophael, who plans to show as many as 15 pieces
in the exhibit, began making icons just a few years ago, after her
marriage to an Egyptian of the Coptic variant of Orthodoxy.. She
and her husband, Wafik Rophael, have traveled the world studying the
process. She "writes" icons for Coptic churches throughout the country,
while he makes the frames, using the style associated with the Egyptian
Christian Church.
"Every faith has its own style of icons," says Mrs. Rophael, 46.
"I would say that Coptic icons are deceptively simple."
Of course, icons must be compelling.
"They may not be pretty, but they do need to be attractive," she
says. "You don't want to lose a chance to tell the story."
Regardless of time period, place of origin or artistic expertise,
all icons maintain a marked similarity of detail.
"Icons are not supposed to add new ideas," says Mrs. Rophael. "We
stay pretty close to the original."
In "The Burial," her icon of Christ brought down from the cross,
Mrs. Rophael uses iconic conventions, including the cloth cover and the
sad-looking but hopeful expression that can be found in icons throughout
the Eastern world. Yet she also adds a device of her own, a single small
flower lying close to Christ.
"If I were there I would want to leave a flower," she says. "I
think that's the way most people would feel."
Mrs. Rophael uses acrylic paints for her icons. But many
iconographers use the same kind of materials that their forebears did:
wooden panels, gold leaf and paints made from egg tempera.
"It's an exciting way to work," Mr. Chakos says. "There is a kind
of sacredness to what you are doing when you know it has been done this
way for more than a thousand years."
Mr. Chakos mixes his paints using an egg base, which makes the
colors adhere to the wooden panels. He also uses the encaustic method,
in which pigments are mixed with wax and heated to create a homogeneous
layer of color. Finally, he picks out parts of the work he wishes to
highlight with gold leaf.
When the moonlight washes over the icons arranged in his Northwest
studio, "something holy takes place," he says.
"When the light strikes the picture that is when the magic
happens," he says. "The person may be long dead but there is something
that remains of a very vibrant spirit there."
• • •
So what makes a "good" icon?
"We judge an icon by who is moved to prayer," says Father Basil
Kissal of Sts. Constantine and Helen Church. "A good icon will make you
want to pray."
Icons are an integral part of both the architecture and experience
of Orthodoxy. No Orthodox church would be complete without its
iconostasis, the icon wall that separates the sanctuary from the body of
the church.
In the Washington area, an influx of immigrants has resulted in a
plethora of Orthodox churches. Each brings its own tradition of icon
making. But all are linked by the powerful pull of the past.
Since 1918, Sts. Constantine and Helen has been a beacon for
members of the Washington area's Greek community, which began arriving
in great numbers just before the 1900s. .
Initially, most of the immigrants to Washington were men, lured by
the promise of economic self-sufficiency. Often, the new arrivals were
from the same village and together or stayed with a compatriot who had
gone before.
"People came because there were other Greeks here," Father Basil
says. "Families were intertwined and unbreakable."
After World War II, many Greeks moved away from the old downtown,
following 16th Street uptown or leaving the District altogether for the
suburbs. It is a pattern that continues as immigrants from the Orthodox
tradition move in and establish churches, often at the behest of
relatives who have come before them. Like their icons, the Orthodox
churches in the Washington area remain a constant in the lives of their
members.
"We are united by a singularity of purpose," Father Basil says.
"There are many churches now, but we are one family."
source : http://www.washtimes.com/weekend/20020509-19428727.htm