Frankly some of the eastern icons look scary. The saints look joyless and too serious. Is there a reason for this style? I pretty much find western style artwork more inspiring. I don’t mean this to be insulting, but I just don’t understand why the saints look so dour in all the icons.
I notice many of the eastern icons have this frowning countenance on the faces of the subjects. What is the philosophy behind this style?
Also, some of them have a primative art style that has a very small head on the baby Jesus, who looks odd. Look at this one. The proportions of the subjects are not realistic, and the artwork isn’t really that great.
Spirit,
I’d suggest that you not look so much to the “art history” of icons as to the theology of them. While they, unquestionably, have an artistry about them, it is not that with which we are concerned.
That said, I don’t mean to imply that we don’t have individual preferences among us as to the different styles and schools of iconography which “speak” to us - and those which do are not necessarily consonant with our ethnicity or our particular religious heritage.
What you see as stern, we may see as thoughtful, pensive, introspective, learned. You are applying words descriptive of portraiture and realistic representation to holy things that are not intended to be “of this world” in what they depict and are not, therefore, bound by the constraints, conventions, and stylisms of worldly artistic techniques.
Let me recommend some reading to help you better understand iconography in a variety of its aspects;
The Tradition of Iconography by Bishop Kallistos Ware, an Orthodox hierarch whose writing is well-respected and widely read by Orthodox and Catholics alike.
Iconography In the Eastern Church by Bishop Nicholas Samra, Auxiliary-Emeritus of the Eparchy of Newton of the Melkites.
Byzantine Iconography, not a definitive work, but a reasonably well-written research paper by an anonymous student
Rules for the Painter of Icons, this is a simplified/condensed piece from a commercial site (a Bulgarian iconography gallery), but what it says is valid
Iconographer Marek Czarnecki, an article about a young Polish-American iconographer
Understanding How Icons Are Written - An Interview, a follow-up Q&A with the subject of the above article
Iconography, from Saints Peter & Paul (OCA) Church (Meriden, CT); it gives a brief intro to and then goes on to display a number of icons and describe their features. It also has a suggested reading list.
Icons & Iconography, from the website of Al Green, an Orthodox layman, who has a variety of very interesting and worthwhile webpages; this offers a significant number of great links to sources (both commercial and religious) for icons, as well as to articles,
etc., on-line.
Orthodox Art & Architecture, on the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America site, has a concise, but thorough, history of iconography
Saint Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church has an excellent series of articles on Greek iconography at its site.
St. Michael’s Melkite Greek Catholic Cathedral, the Cathedral of the Melkite Eparchy for Australia and New Zealand, has some brief articles and beautiful examples of the Arabic style of iconography at its website.
Icons of the Theotokos, from the Marian Center at the University of Dayton
Sacred Images: Statues and Other Icons describes many of the stylisms used in iconography and is of particular interest for its
Symbolology Table
Iconographic Treasures of the Ecumenical Patriarchate illustrates many of the icons in the Patriarchal Church at Constantinople, as well as describing them in detail
(continued)
