art 30 Oct 2006 09:40 am
Seeing Through You
Lay aside for a few moments what you think about iconography. This was a really neat explanation of perspective I read this weekend.
This is called Christ Pantocrator of Sinai (think I got that right). It is known to be a particulary powerful image, one that seems to see through you and penetrate one’s thoughts as they gaze upon it.
The following quote is from another Frederica Matthewes-Green book called “The Open Door” and it offers a breakdown of a sort as to why this image draws the viewer in so well.
“One way the iconographer has achieved this intense effect is that the perspective is intentionally distorted. Look at the Gospel book; it towers upward, as if we’re standing on the street looking up at the corner of a sky scraper. But if you look at the figure of Christ, it’s as if we’re facing him squarely, with our head coming up to His chest. What’s more, the whole image of Christ gets subtly wider as it goes back into the picture. Why is that?
You’ll remember from elemenatry school art lessons that ‘perspective’ means that when you look at a picture of railroad tracks, far in the distance the tracks converge. The place where everything collapses into a tiny spot is called the ‘vanishing point’. That’s the rule in most western painting. A canvas shows a scene as if you’re looking into the box of a theater stage, with everything smaller as it goes back. That kind of perspective invites you into the frame of the picture, as if you’re entering a room and joining the characters there.
With many icons, however, perspective is reversed. Christ’s ears and hair are wider than his face. His shoulders seem to go on forever. Things are getting larger as they go back, and smaller as they come toward you. This means that the convergence point is in front of the picture, right about where your’e standing. You’re the ‘vanishing point’. ”
From “The Open Door”, pages 16 and 17, by Frederica Matthewes-Green.
This weekend we watched part of Sister Wendy’s The Story of Painting. She has an equally wonderful way of breaking down the elements of a painting so that it not only leaps to life in your mind, but causes you to feel the humanity and desire for beauty the artist had and was trying to communicate. Inspiring stuff.
on 01 Nov 2006 at 10:35 am 1.Beth said …
Love that insight, that the vanishing point is YOU. Puts things in perspective. I think one reason we don’t get icons (besides their unfamiliarity) is that we don’t spend time meditating in front of them, or in front of anything, really. It would probably amaze us if we’d spend an hour kneeling in front of something, the insights that would come to us. I know on my silent retreat there were many icons (not this kind, but contemporary ones) and I gleaned so much meaning from them because I had time and solitude to meditate on their meaning to me.
Anyway, just loved that bit about perspective.