www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Icons & Iconography Modern Materials for Icons?

I think there is an ideal to use traditional media, but then some do otherwise.
The well-know St. Elisabeth Convent in Minsk offers icons, most of which are done in acrylic. Of course there have been embroidered icons on vestments and banners.
There is a lot of pressure to use traditional media because the revival of traditional iconography is so recent it would be a step backwards to do otherwise.
Consider American Abstract Expressionism, where the medium is the message. This is the extreme of what is involved with iconography. There is something cosmic in the selection of traditional media for icons, using representatives of different element groups to produce something evoking the Incarnation. It is quite different from making a statue or mere religious art.
If you look at most iconography offered on the web, it is quite bad. Persons with some or no talent take a workshop (I did) and poof they are iconographers. It is really supposed to take years or praxis under a guide who had the tradition handed on the him...and lots of prayer and fasting. Of course there were stalwarts such as Photios Kontoglou or Ksenia Pokrovskaya, who were called to revive the iconographic tradition on a wider scale than the Athonite and Old Ritualists who kept it, but this was the result of prayer, study and spiritual guidance.
Sorry for regurgitating things that are written of ad nauseam regarding traditinal iconography.
And I hold no animus against the "soft style" which maintains in churches furnished c.1700 to c. 1960. They are holy, having been in the presence of the liturgy countless times.

Thank you Mark for your reply.

It appears Icon production is more about the journey than the final product. Which to me makes all the more meaningful.

Since I am on the forum actively (for the first time, although I "lurk" constantly!) I thought I'd just add that one of the canons governing iconography insists that the materials used should be as durable as possible. Evidently the ancient Mayans had an early form of acrylic which looks as fresh now as it did 500 years ago! So it seems to me that acrylic may be not just suitable for iconography, but maybe eminently suitable!

Bob

There are no ecumenical canons governing the correct materials for icons. Naturally we want to go for materials that are durable and suitable for conveying a spiritual aesthetic.

P.S. Icons are painted, not written

I agree with you, except that, as the 7th ecumenical council teaches, icons are holy by virtue of the persons depicted and their names inscribed. There is no need for further "blessing" of icons, though this has become a popular practice.

Perhaps I mis-spoke in using the term "canons." There is indeed no set of canon law regarding icons. But there are plenty of rules, found scattered throughout Council decisions, synod proceedings and other sources--the Rudder, for instance. As far as I know, no one has ever attempted to collect the rules into one comprehensive set. A daunting task, actually, as many times there are variant rules, even contradictory at times!

No church follows all the canons to a tee, Catholic, Orthodox or Old Calendar breakaway bodies...even though some behave as though they are canon law fundementalists.

BTW, "painting icons" is as correct as "writing icons". "Graphein" generally means depiction.