About Byzantine Iconography

Byzantine paintings have been traced back to their roots around the 1st or 2nd century AD, and are known more commonly as the early Christian paintings. Such paintings included wall paintings, smaller, movable icons, mosaics, and painted manuscripts of the artists from the Greek Empire of Byzantine. Typically, they appeared in the catacombs of the first Roman churches and even further east. This Christian art essentially descended from what was the ancient art of Greece. From this art form, Luke the Evangelist was acknowledged as the Iconographer who painted the Holy Virgin as well as Peter and Paul, the Apostles.

Byzantine Art originated during the 6th century AD. This art was conceived with the Greek Emperor Justinian’s rule and ended with the Iconoclastic Controversy that was initiated by the Emperor Leo the Isaurian during his rule in the 8th century AD.

In this period, holy icons were restored around the 9th century and continued until the capture of Constantinople in 1204 AD. At that time traditional cultural art forms such as architecture, music, poetry, and paintings were not considered "art." Instead, each form of artistic expression independently evolved while being bound by rigid parameters that were doctrinally liturgical of that period.

From this thinking, the belief during that time was to consider church art forms as liturgical art. Therefore, the art form or icon symbolizing the Greek Orthodox Church did not represent any art of a particular religion or nationality of people, but rather that of a symbolic communion with God.

This is why when one examines a Byzantine icon, one is supposed to view a representation not of an animated, specific human art form, but of an image of flesh that is radiant with the divine light of God. In such an image, God’s spiritual glory is illustrated by mortal materials so that it can be viewed by mortal eyes. In this manner, everything that would remind a mortal human of flesh is contrary to the essence of the icon. Therefore, the logic held that a mortal painting of a saint could not be considered an icon because it presented the saint his secular state. Consequently, this belief is what sets such icons apart from other forms of pictorial art.

From this belief, liturgical art was man’s offering to God as well as God’s descent into mankind’s existence. Coupled with this belief was God’s descent into man’s physical existence such as grace intermixed into nature and eternity into time. Through this form of “church art” man able to visualize the existence of God. Naturally, the icon’s physical beauty (glory), as with the Holy Scriptures, provided mediums for man to learn about and, therefore, know God.

Interestingly, the icons’ physical beauty was not intended to stir human emotion. Rather, it was tasked to guide human emotion and reason toward the spiritual path of transformation toward divinity. The beauty emitted and visible to mortal eyes was meant to be the purity of spirit in which the icon’s changes represented the future unity of the whole creation, or the Kingdom of the Holy Spirit. The icon represents divinity and grace, not human imperfection, sin and mortality. This is what humans were intended to see rather than the mere everyday, physical attributes that depict the icon.

Transforming from these roots to present day, the icon is considered a prayer in itself, both the way and means.

Because of the previous beliefs, Byzantine art and iconography are not considered obsolete. Since they were born in the souls of the early Christians, and have not been replaced by any other forms of art, Byzantine is as applicable in our daily lives today as they were during the 1st Millennium.