May I add something here. There is much more history to Icons that what you are seeing. I have included much of it below. But Icons are not a work of art, they are written, as in writing a book.They tell a story, they teach a lesson, and they must always be Bibilicly correct. Everything in an icon has a purpose, the colors, the buildings, the covered hands, just everything you see, tells one something. We believe they are windows to heaven. As we gaze upon them, heaven gazes back at us. One cannot write an icon without permission of the bishop and it cannot be done without fasting and prayer. They are not just works of art…
The reason we still have icons, the first written by St. Luke, is during the Iconoclastic period, this statement was made: Because we have seen Jesus we have seen the Father.
I borrowed this information from a site and forgot to get the addy, sorry. It was easier than typing it all, it follows…
A brief explanation is necessary about Byzantine iconoclasm and the seventh ecumenical council (787) which condemned it. It has already been observed that Byzantine religious art is among the empire’s most enduring legacies. An iconoclast victory would almost certainly have altered the course of Byzantine painting. Iconoclasm, in general, is usually viewed apart from the christological debates with which the earlier ecumenical councils were concerned. Be that as it may, the iconoclastic issue was ultimately christological. To illustrate this point we need to begin with the fundamental iconoclast argument of idolatry. How could the divinity of Christ - argued the iconoclast - be depicted or represented without falling into idolatry? Plainly put, veneration of the Lord’s icon was nothing else than idolatrous worship of inanimate wood and paint. And that certainly was expressly forbidden by Scripture to the Christian. This seemingly cogent argument, however, did not convince the Church or the Fathers of the seventh council.
An icon, it is true, is made of wood and paint, but it is only a symbol. Further, it is neither an object of absolute veneration nor of worship. On the contrary, icons are only relatively venerated, for the true object of veneration is ultimately the person depicted in the icon, not the image itself. Moreover, a clear distinction is to be drawn between veneration (proskynesis), with which the icons should be honored, and worship (latreia), which belongs to God alone. In sum, it was altogether unlawful to worship icons, for God alone is worshipped and adored; they could and should, however, be venerated. This insistence that icons should be honored brings us to the Church’s second crucial argument - the christological. This argument maintains that a pictorial representation of the Lord or of the saints is entirely permissible and, in fact, necessary because of the incarnation. That is to say, the son of God can be depicted pictorially precisely because he became visible and describable by taking on our flesh and becoming man. Any repudiation of the Lord’s icon is tantamount to a denial of the incarnation. Fittingly enough, the defeat of iconoclasm is celebrated annually by the Orthodox Church on the first Sunday of Lent. This “Feast of Orthodoxy” commemorates the final restoration of images
The Seventh Eccumenical Council…this is when the Anathamas were set in place.
members.aol.com/theclarion/creeds_confessions/seven_councils.html#7
Here is some more detailed information on the Iconoclastic Period
greece.org/Romiosini/iconoclastic.html
Hope this helps
Pani Rose
