Windows into Heaven
nick cobb
Tuesday 29 September 1998
Painting 'windows into heaven'
An iconographer explains how gold, paint
and wood can create a religious treasure to
last 500 years.
Bob Harvey
The Ottawa Citizen
Icons are a window unto
heaven, says Ottawa
iconographer Heiko Schlieper.
"A holy image is a vehicle of
grace," Mr. Schlieper says.
"They're windows that allow
people to see into the spiritual
world, and maybe even into
heaven itself."
Icons are little understood in
the Western world, but the
images that Mr. Schlieper
paints of saints, Christ, the
Virgin Mary and other biblical
themes are venerated by Eastern European Christians
as pathways to spiritual
grace.
Mr. Schlieper is one of Canada's few full-time
iconographers and is featured
in a Vision TV program to be telecast tonight at 10
p.m.
He quit teaching Eastern European studies at McGill
University in 1977. "It
was one of the best things I've ever done. I have
been extraordinarily happy
in my work."
Until then, iconography had been only a part-time
hobby, even though he had
studied art with Group of Seven painters A.Y. Jackson
and Arthur Lismer.
Living the life of an icon artist has meant
sacrifices. His living room is
furnished with beautifully lacquered furniture, but
he says virtually all of it
came out of other people's garbage; he has simply
refinished it all.
"That's because I've been poor all my life," says Mr.
Schlieper.
His life is also nomadic. Although he has a home in
Ottawa, he spent six years
in the late 1980s and early 1990s painting icons on
the walls and ceilings of a
Toronto church. More recently he completed
five-and-a-half years of work in
Edmonton on St. George's, a Ukrainian Catholic
church.
His smallest icons sell for about $350 to $400, and
are about letter-sized. His
larger works take much longer and are truly immense.
The image of Christ
Pantocrator, or Christ in majesty, that he painted on
the dome of St. George's
stands 25 metres above ground, and is about six
metres high.
Mr. Schlieper, 67, says he spent about a year and a
half researching the 20
main images of the Passion of Christ that decorate
the Edmonton church, and
about 100,000 hours painting those and the other
images now adorning the
church.
He says that with some minimal maintenance, all of
his works should endure
for 500 years or more.
"There is something consoling in knowing that
something you created will
outlast you."
Many of his works are in churches throughout Canada,
as well as the
Museum of Civilization in Hull. Some of his works are
in the collections of the
Russian Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow, Alexy II, and
of Pope Shenouda
III, the head of the Coptic Church in Egypt.
Mr. Schlieper was raised in the Lutheran Church, but
about 15 years ago he
converted and became a member of the Orthodox Church
of America.
He says great iconographers combine technical
competence and spiritual
insight. When he begins an icon, he says he reads
everything he can about the
saint he is painting.
"I pray for guidance that what I am about to do will
be a reflection of the
holiness of the subject matter.
"I don't think of other things when I'm working on an
icon. I have a
relationship with it, and I'm not sure it's with the
icon or the subject matter."
Mr. Schlieper says he is a "classicist," adhering to
the ancient traditions of
iconography.
He never does any work without first researching
earlier icons of the same
saint or biblical scene, and generally models his
work on icons done in the
16th century or earlier.
He also uses traditional materials: 20-karat gold
gilding, egg tempera paints,
and kiln-dried wood.
The painting of icons is also strictly regulated
according to conventions
developed over 1,000 years by Eastern Christian
churches in the Byzantine
Empire, Russia and other centres of Eastern
orthodoxy.
Rev. Andrew Morbey says all Orthodox and Eastern
Christian are expected
to have icons.
When the Orthodox Church first ruled in the eighth
century, part of their
purpose was to serve as a visual teaching tool for
mainly illiterate believers.
But Father Morbey says we need icons more than ever.
"They stand as images of the Christian
counter-culture, of a way of life and
values that are often in conflict with the the crass
images, the materialistic,
voyeuristic images that surround us."
Father Morbey said the Orthodox Church puts a great
emphasis on appealing
to the senses through art, incense, and other means,
because they touch the
heart. Icons "point toward a way of being purified."
The golden age of iconography died with the fall of
Constantinople in 1453,
says Mr. Schlieper.
"In this age, we're all standing on the shoulders of
the past."
Mr. Schlieper says it's also becoming increasingly
difficult to communicate the
value of an icon.
"As little as 150 years ago, any image had value. But
today we're so
saturated with images that we don't even look at them
any more. Images are
disposable."
Icons also need to be interpreted for the Western
mind. Icons are not meant
to be realistic portraits, but are a kind of abstract
painting.
The figures often seem stiff and formal and detached,
partly because church
doctrine requires that the saints be depicted as
emotionless.
Emotions are considered transitory and therefore have
no place in the images
of human beings who are revered because they have
been transformed into
an image of an eternal God, said Mr. Schlieper.
theo...@medlib.georgetown.edu
ni...@cris.com wrote:
>
>
> Tuesday 29 September 1998
>
> Painting 'windows into heaven'
>
> An iconographer explains how gold, paint
> and wood can create a religious treasure to
> last 500 years.
>
> Bob Harvey
> The Ottawa Citizen
>
> Icons are a window unto
> heaven, says Ottawa
> iconographer Heiko Schlieper.
<article snipped>
Thank goodness it was an article about iconography; I thought it was going to
be a post about Microsoft extending their hegemony!
In XC,
Nick (the other Nick) Theodorakis
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