Icon
[Gr.
eikon=image],
single image
created as a
focal point
of religious
veneration,
especially a
painted or
carved
portable
object of
the Orthodox
Eastern
faith. Icons
commonly
represent
Christ
Pantocrator,
the Virgin
as Queen of
the Heavens,
or, less
frequently,
the saints;
since the
6th cent.
they have
been
considered
an aid to
the devotee
in making
his prayers
heard by the
holy figure
represented
in the icon.
The icon
grew out of
the mosaic
and fresco
tradition of
early
Byzantine
art. It was
used to
decorate the
wall and
floor
surfaces of
churches,
baptisteries,
and
sepulchers,
and later
was carried
on standards
in time of
war and in
religious
processions.
Although the
art form was
in common
use by the
end of the
5th cent.,
early
monuments
have been
lost,
largely
because of
their
destruction
during the
iconoclastic
controversy
(726–843;
see
iconoclasm).
Little has
survived
that was
created
before the
10th cent.
Byzantine
icons were
produced in
great
numbers
until 1453,
when
Constantinople
fell to the
Ottoman
Empire. The
practice was
transplanted
to Russia,
where icons
were made
until the
Revolution.
The
anonymous
artists of
the Orthodox
Eastern
faith were
concerned
not with the
conquest of
space and
movement as
seen in the
development
of Western
painting but
instead with
the
portrayal of
the symbolic
or mystical
aspects of
the divine
being. The
stiff and
conventionalized
appearance
of icons may
bear some
relationship
to the
two-dimensional,
ornamental
quality of
the Eastern
tradition.
It is this
effect more
than any
other that
causes the
icons in
Byzantine
and later in
Russian,
Greek and
Serbian
Orthodox art
to appear
unchanging
through the
centuries;
there is,
however, a
stylistic
evolution in
Byzanto-Russian
art that can
be seen
through
variations
of a
standard
theme by
local
schools
rather than
through the
development
of an art
style by
periods. The
term icon
came to mean
“subject
matter” in
the
19th-century
German
school of
art
historical
study, and
from this
meaning were
derived the
terms
iconography
and
iconology.
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Altar
Icon
"Assumption
of
the
Theotokos"
from
Studenica
Monastery