The Icon: A Frame of Reference
In Beth Williamson’s work, Altarpieces, Liturgy, and Devotion, she describes how historians go about interpreting a work of art and that in order to understand it, they must place it into a “proper frame of reference” (397). You must look at the image itself, textual and historical evidence, and all other information that provides the key to understanding before the meaning will be revealed. Similarly, in viewing an icon, a “proper frame of reference” must be created for a true experience. Yet instead of historical and design information, the preparation arises internally through an alteration of the mindset and a transformation of sight. The frame of reference for viewing an icon must come through an openness to the experience, a broadening of your personal perspective, and the ability to combine the act of worship and sight. When this frame of reference is used correctly, the icon captures the spirit of the relationship between the viewer and God.
The key to this relationship is through the combination of worship and sight. In The Crossing of the Visible, Jean-Luc Marion discusses the state in which we as a society view images now. Currently, “the image, closed off to its original, thus no longer has any reality other than itself” (Marion 49). We have crafted society into a place that allows us to see without being fully seen ourselves and encourages idolatry through our unconscious “metaphysical principle” that “to be is to be perceived” (50, 52). This principle traps us in the visible, not allowing us to access the invisible reality that dwells all around us. Many authors we have discussed so far have talked about the importance of sight when two faces see one another. The gaze that occurs in this moment transforms us and our sight, permitting us to become more in tune with God. In a world that shuts these connections down intentionally, perhaps through our own fear of being seen as we truly are, the presence of God appears to vanish. This is where the icon comes in, for “in the icon…it is a matter not so much of seeing a spectacle as seeing another gaze that sustains [yours], confronts it, and eventually overwhelms it” (57). In the icon, you “feel [your]self seen” (59).
If you approach the icon with the mindset of worship, you see yourself being seen by God. Despite the fear that arises around being seen in such a manner that exposes all vulnerabilities, Chloe Reddaway, in discussing the public’s fascination with Florentine frescoes, seems to indicate that a part of us yearns to be seen in such a manner by God:
“This incarnational nature may explain why the frescoes continue to have such resonance for modern viewers. As a physical expression of so central and mysterious part of Christian faith, and of concepts of conformity to Christ and community in Christ which remain entirely relevant, the progression from integration to incorporation to incarnation, as presented at San Marco, may be applied well beyond its walls in the understanding that the person who accepts his vocation(whatever its nature) can become in himself an extraordinary, ordinary place of God; that the structures of his life, if infused with worship, can be the house of God; that he too can bring God into the world through conformity to Christ” (109).
Through the icon, we are able to not only see God but also bring the presence of God forth into the world. The icon shatters the separation between the visible and the invisible, for within the icon becomes the means to use the visible to reach towards the invisible. We no longer see simply a lamb with blood pouring from a wound in the Ghent altarpiece, but the Lamb that is Christ whose sacrifice saved us all (McNamee 104–5). Each part of the image becomes something more, for it goes beyond the physicality of the image. Reddaway writes that one is required to “make connections…imaginatively, creatively, and poetically, rather than mechanically” (117). In the Madonna altarpieces, Williamson explains how the simple image of mother and child actually forces one to contemplate the very core of one’s religious beliefs through symbolism of the Eucharist and Christ’s sacrifice, through the Virgin’s mercy and the gift of salvation. Through the visible image of the icon, one “moves towards the invisible proximity of mystery” (Reddaway 119).
There is always difficulty in framing the mind to see in such a manner, of giving yourself up to this invisible “mystery.” I think the beginning to this framing, though, is far simpler than the overwhelming concept that it seems to present. That is not to say that the process is not difficult, for coming closer to God relies on our active participation, but the icon is simply a physical representation of what is always present. Reddaway writes that the icons “relate to each other, to each daily action, to the fabric of existence in the Convent, physical and spiritual — a physical life as permeated with spirituality as the plaster is with pigment, such that the two are inseparably fused into something new” (150). The icon allows us to acknowledge that presence and the bond between the physical and the spiritual. If we are willing to open ourselves to that possibility, we already begin to see, and the Ghent altarpiece, the Florentine frescoes, the Madonna altarpieces, the other icons, all become ways for us to experience the presence of God and to understand in a deeply emotional and physical way the essence of our faith.
