Can you sign an icon? - 2
Where did those signatures on modern Greek icons, which I wrote about in an earlier article, come from? Could it be that ancient Greek icons were also signed? Well, that would be startling, because you are not allowed to sign icons says everyman in the Netherlands.
So all in all, I had to take a moment to check the icons from the great flowering of the Cretan school (1400-1650), which we emulate in our school, for any signatures.
Here come the names of the painters who signed and the list is not exhaustive: Angelos, Ritsos, Lambardos, Damaskinos, Viktor, Tzanes, Poulakis, Skoufos and Eufrosynos. Yes, these all sign, barring a few, and they are the biggest names of the period. Salient detail is that especially many signatures of 17th century masters are forgeries on older icons. A question mark is appropriate here. Furthermore, I know of no signature of our favorite Theophanes, only a “fecit” on the wall of Meteora's Anapavsas Monastery that he painted.
This means that anyone who claims that you are not allowed to sign icons does not know Greek reality past and present. You should not say it because it is a miss. If you say in a lecture or in a book or in the press or on the Internet that it is not allowed, you should cite your sources. Meanwhile, you do bring it out into the world. There ís no prohibition.
My sources: the first book I got my hands on mentioned signatures of the most important Greek painters. I looked first in the book of the icon museum Recklinghausen and it gave the above names, and then with the second book, Icons of the Cretan School (1983) by Nanos Chatzidakis mentioned all the names. Surely a little research is not that difficult? By the way, in the Museum Catharijneconvent was an icon exhibited signed as early as 1421. Then it turns out that Serbs and Macedonians were also already signing. It doesn't stop there.
Everyone in this little country talks after each other, and in the end, I think, some traders and so-called experts benefit from the anonymity of the icon painter, through the poverty of the icon painter, the image that is conferred that he is not doing it for the money, that he is a monk, painting in prayer and incredible fasting, the patina, the mysticism and symbolism of the icon, only to find in the end that modern icon painters do not live up to the image and that modern icons are inadequate. The group that all these fairy tales do very well for is the group of icon traders who then trade the true ancient icons and the icon experts who do not have to make a living from it and who do not paint themselves but want to keep a compelling story.
To that group I want to say that icons must be reproduced forever, certainly by me and the 20 or so Orthodox who learned it from me, icons must resemble the previous ones and that all icons were new on the day of completion.