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SHOWING OFF TRADITION

How often are we painters told by experts, art historians, clergy, laymen, icon dealers and the like, that we should start designing for ourselves. I hear it so often, even from people who paint Russian icons. Father Anton of the Amsterdam Russian Church, who paints himself, the priest André Gouzes in Sylvanès, France, Marcel Watté, Belgium, Bernard Frinking, France. “Boy, go and design something yourself!”

I am not condemning the self-design of icons. To be clear, we are talking about authorized designs, of course, which the Church will approve because they are in accordance with the painters' manuals, reflect the teachings of the Church, are based on what human eyes have seen or are recorded in the legends and the lives of saints. In Bernard Frinking's school, you are taught in design. You draw before painting. With that I have this objection: not everyone has talent for drawing. The designs that one makes do not match the balanced and crystallized designs of the tradition. It does not do justice to tradition. Of course, few of Bernard's students succeed in composing a worthy counterpart to the icons offered by tradition. I compare drawing myself to drawing a circle (for a nimbus) freehand rather than with a compass. [In De Caluwé's classes, by the way, the use was without compasses].

In my very first blog, I addressed Bernard's argument. Very briefly again: you get to ruffle other people's feathers. He calls it our vanity. Well, those preliminary drawings underlying the icons of e.g. Theophanes have a long history of centuries. It is not the merit of one. Names you can mention then are Andreas Ritsos, Raimondi, South Germans, Italians, Classical Greek and Roman sculptors and Hellenistic mosaic artists. The merit is of tradition if you do have to name names. And it is precisely to show off with tradition. ... That the icon painter flaunts tradition. Bernard, who reads Greek, has certainly not read Dionysius of Fourna on the tracing of ancient icons.

His second argument: your drawing must come from your inspiration. This is what I call vanity. “What do you think you are,” I think.

Here I am railing against design, but I do it myself. How now? I took lessons from Bernard in 1997-99 in three courses*. I drew a Mandylion twice and it was Him. A John in the Desert, and it was hit. Three years later a Sweet-kissing Mother of God, and what got clear later? Like two drops later, the famous Sweet Kissing from the Benaki Museum. I did get goosebumps at that moment I must say. At that time I had been a full-time icon painter for 12 years. You then dream the icon face, so to speak. Tradition swallows you up at a certain point. You become overloaded with it. It becomes fasting with the eyes. You watch less TV and movies than icons. At this stage you can start drawing carefree and it rolls right out of your pencil.

So this timing is mandatory. First years of daily copying, then drawing. Of my (hobby) painters, no one draws. Rightly so. In Greece there are perhaps a lucky 10 out of thousands of icon painters who manage to put down a worthy Christ. All right. They are professionals thanks to Orthodox Greece. Only to them it is given by their daily work and their talent.

Now what I would like to see from the experts, laity and painters who speak scornfully about copying and who ask us to design icons ourselves for a change: a little more respect for tradition. We show off tradition when we depict it in its ancient icons. We show how beautiful she is. Tradition is at its best in its ancient icons.

*This for myself: 29/8-7/9/97 and 15-21/3 and 4-11/9/99