Icons, in Eastern Christian tradition, are a representation of holy luminaries or events in fresco painting, mosaic, or wood. Icon painting is the oldest tradition of Christian sacred art, embodying the work of thousands of iconographers, many of whom were themselves, saints. Unlike other approaches to painting, the creation of an icon does not begin in the artist's imagination. Rather, the iconographer's first work is to study how the subject at hand has been traditionally depicted in this rich artistic tradition.
Although today’s icons are most closely identified with
wooden panel painting, in Byzantium they could be painted (or sculpted in
shallow relief) from a wide variety of media, such as marble, ivory, mosaic, gemstone,
precious metal, enamel, or fresco painting.
Icons varied in size from the miniature to the very large.
Some types were hung around the neck as pendants, others had three panels that
could be opened and folded closed. Despite its pictorial educational function,
iconography in the classical Orthodox tradition is a symbolic art, rather than
a naturalistic one.
Icon art observes certain rules of composition and color,
which are designed to reinforce the theological message. Almost everything
contained within the Icon painting is essentially
symbolic.
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