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Dragan Milivojevic
SEMIOTICS OF RUSSIAN AND SERBIAN ORTHODOX ICONS. Dragan Milivojevic.
Dragan Milivojevic
SEMIOTICS OF RUSSIAN AND SERBIAN ORTHODOX ICONS
Icons are a form of religious and symbolic painting shared by members of the Orthodox communities in different countries: Greece, Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Romania. In this paper, I will consider the common characteristics of the iconic art in the medieval period of all the countries mentioned above. Iconic painting can trace its fundamental technique and presentation to the influence of Byzantine iconic painting. An icon as a work of art is based on the tension between the visual perception of our terrestrial world and the mysterious world beyond. Religious truths which are rooted in the world beyond our sensory ken are rendered by earthly means: by form, color and light. This sensory image of icons should appear as a copy of the universe beyond our sensory perception, holy and godlike and intended to preserve the unchangeable essence of things. It is what Mircea Eliade calls 'sacred space' which is ..."essentially real space...It is in such space that one has direct contact with the sacred-whether this be materialized in certain objects...or manifested in the hiero-cosmic symbols . The icon is constrained by Christian dogma and has a function within Orthodox Church liturgy as a part of the Orthodox Church Iconostasis, the wall of icons separating the alter section of an Orthodox church form the nave. Icons are not paintings in the usual sense of this word. Paintings with their lines and colors depict the people and events of reality which surround us or as in impressionist and abstract painting they reflect the inner life of an artist in which the relationship between events, objects and colors are deformed to the point of nonrecognition. Icons differ from both realistic, representational art and impressionistic and abstract art by REPRESENTING and not depicting another world. The images on icons are looking at us as we look at them. There is an old Russian family custom of covering icons with a piece of cloth when inappropriate, shameful or dishonest actions are taking place in a room with icons present. Icons are covered or removed from a room where sexual encounters occur. The creator of icons is not an artist in the traditional sense of the word, someone who tries to be daringly original and inventive in such a way as to ensure his prominence in the competitive art world. Icon painters are for the most part anonymous and instead of originality they practice long established conventions. The aim of iconic painting is to communicate this otherworldly reality to viewers by a system of signs; in this way, iconic painting resembles other communicative systems such as natural languages. The canon of icon painting has a set of definite rules and conventional models which represent a closed communicative system. Different communicative levels may be distinguished which parallel levels in natural languages: the use of color in its distinctive contrasts corresponds to the phonemic distinctive feature level, the shape of figures and objects depicted represent the morphological linguistic level. Spacial and temporal relations in an icon can be separated for analytic purposes from the objects represented and they represent one level which in natural languages would correspond to the syntactic level. Such is the division into the right and left side and high and low side of an icon with each side having a definite semiotic function in definite environments as well as the inverted perspective. This is the basic level of analysis of an elementary semiotic value. Such a level may be compared to the phonological level in natural languages which also deal with the basic level of linguistic analysis. The subject of pictorial or iconic representation forms a higher level as it refers to the meaning of what is being represented and it may be compared to the semantic level in natural languages. In Orthodox iconic painting the method of representation depends on the object represented. The semantically important figures such as Christ and the Virgin Mary occupy the central position and are depicted as immobile compared to other individuals on the icon. This way
of indicating multiplicity can be compared to the grammatical method
of reduplication indicating plurality similar to the reduplication
of the stem in the plural formation in Indonesian: 'kursi'-chair,
kursikursi-chairs. On the symbolic level of painting symbolism of
color can be examined from different points of view and can be compared
to the phraseological level in a natural language as color is a
twice removed sign and therefore of an higher order. In other words,
color is not a sign by itself; it has to relate to an object or
a special arbitrary situation to obtain its full significance.
The semiotic, lingual nature of icon painting was noticed and confirmed by Orthodox church fathers. St. Nilus of Sinai wrote in the fifth century that the icons were placed in churches "so that the illiterate who are unable to read the Holy Scriptures, may, by gazing at the pictures, become mindful of the faith. Pope Gregory the Great expressed the same idea: "What a book is to those who can read, a picture is to the ignorant people who look at it. Because in a picture even the unlearned may see what example they should follow; Because in a picture they who know no letters may yet read." This concept of otherworldliness to be expressed by visible means necessitated a particular painting style different from the realistic style of verisimilitude used in portraying scenes from this world. From the Christian point of view this world in which we are living is different and inferior to the world beyond and this point of dogma had to be expressed visually in icon painting by violating some of the conventions and rules of realistic verisimilitude painting especially as relates to the concepts of space and time. The eye as part of the corporal world cannot be trusted and what it sees may be misleading as the widely different testimonies of eyewitnesses of the same event may show. Scientists confirm the restrictive range of our eyesight since we are surrounded by the world we cannot see bounded on one side of the spectrum by high frequency colors and on the other by low frequency colors. We will always be removed a few levels from a reality we ultimately can only imagine. Persons at a distance appear smaller than their actual size so our visual image of them does not correspond to their real size. The direct perspective which has been used widely after the Renaissance assumes a viewer who outside the object or the figure viewed from a fixed position sees a receding landscape converging in one point at the end of the horizon. A rectangular table will in the distance have its sides so bent inward that it will assume the form of a trapezoid with its broad base towards the viewer. Such a sense of perspective has been compared to a person who looks outside his open window onto a scene of which he is not a part (fenestra aperta). This relationship between an observer and the object or figure observed is equivalent to the relationship between a subject and an object. In icon painting we have an inverted perspective: objects and figures which are further away appear larger than those close by. The viewer places himself or herself inside the picture. This kind of painting and drawing technique is also characteristic of children whose separateness as an ego and as an observer has not yet been formed. A child who drew a bridge with some figures in front of it, in the foreground, depicting the latter as smaller than the bridge was asked why are the figures smaller than the bridge. Did he know that what is closer to us seems larger? And what is further away smaller? His answer was, "Yes, but actually, you see I am standing on the bridge."The vanishing point is in front of the picture instead of behind it. The relationship between a viewer and an icon in a inverted perspective is closer and more intimate. The saintly figure on the icon confronts the viewer on an equal basis as a subject facing another subject. It is what Jung describes as synchronicity an encounter between a person and an entity which causes intra psychic changes in the former. Another fact which accentuates the autonomy of icons vis-a-vis viewers is their spacial orientation in terms of left side/right side. It is the mirror image of the left side/right side orientation of a viewer. Our viewer's left side is the icon's right side and the icon's left side is our viewer's right side. It is the spacial orientation of the figure on the icon which determines which side is right and which is left. The opposition rightside/left side plays an important part in the semiotics of icon painting. If goodness and evil are contrasted on an icon, goodness will be located on the right side of an icon and evil will be located on the left or sinister side. The word 'sinister' by itself as well as its figurative equivalents in other European languages implies negativity, ('gauche' in French). We are reminded of the crucifixion depictions where the repentant thief is on Christ's right and on the unrepentant on his left. Devils and scenes depicting hell are invariably located on the left side. In terms of color symbolism the red color of the coat of the person wielding an ax symbolizes blood which is about to be spilled. It is contrasted with the more subdued red coat of the saint. Here we have an opposition between two different shades of red which reinforce the right side/left side opposition. The Russian chronicle describes the conversion of Russians to Christianity in 988 by Prince Vladimir who asked his compatriots to move to the left side if they want to remain pagans and go to hell or move to the right side if they want to join the new religion. It would be interesting to know whether Prince Vladimir referred to his right side or to the right side of the people addressed, that is whether he was facing the crowd or standing in front of it. This scene is reminiscent of the Last Judgement where the just sit on the right side and the damned on the left. If a battle between two armies is presented, the good righteous men will proceed from the right side and the bad men from the left side. The two
dimensional frontal figures of inverted perspective are not an indication
of icon painters' lack of skill. The inverted perspective was a
consciously cultivated artistic medium of expression, a different
language dominant in the iconography of the Byzantine
empire and of the medieval Russian,
Bulgarian, Serbian, Ukrainian and Rumanian kingdoms. The
transition to the post-renaissance direct perspective medium in
icon painting was considered to be a step backward.
Thus Protopope Avvakum (1621-1682, the head of Old Believers) was outraged that the representatives of the new school who "paint the image of the Savior, Immanuel, as puffy-faced, with rosy red lips, curly hair, fat arms and muscles, bloated fingers and fat thighs, just like some pot-belied German, all fat, only without a sword at his side. And all this is painted," concludes Avvakum, "in a carnal way, because the heretics are enamored of carnal grossness and have cast the heavens down to the depths,...And all this, that borzoi hound Nikon (Patriarch Nikon 1605-1681), the enemy, intended to paint 'AS If Alive'. Saints dwelling in another world where our notions of space, time and the physical laws of gravity do not apply cannot be painted "As If Alive". All individual physical descriptions of saints are omitted. We can only tell them apart by secondary characteristics-their clothes, by the shape of their beards or the presence of a book in their hands. These secondary characteristics are an iconographic constant present in the depiction of the same saint in icons pertaining to different time periods. I don't think that Avvakum had any anti-German bias but he thought that icons should be painted in an abstract way with idealized human figures defying the terrestrial gravitational pull and faces which are devoid of all attributes of life- flesh, blood and muscle. Light and color. Light is a traditional religious symbol of spiritual enlightenment and goodness. There are at least a hundred compound words in Orthodox Church language composed of this word: light-bearer, light-giver, light-like, light-manifesting, light-of-light not counting where the word 'light' appears by itself. The lightness/darkness distinction is the starting point of the series set forth in Berlin's Basic Color Terms. This happens to be perceptually the most general of all 'color' experiences. The most important characteristic of the color inventory presented in Basic Color Terms is its universality. From this universal set of colors each culture draws its own subset. Icon painters saw the divine light dwelling in icons and radiating from them without any outside reflected light interfering. The colors in icons do not reflect the relationship of colors and objects in nature. It is an autonomous system of color assumed to be present in the heavenly realm. Gold, like an icon, was considered to be an object radiating light regardless of the influence of the surrounding environment and as such was compared in Byzantine iconography to sunlight and the divine light. Its use in the background of icons symbolizes 'the light not of this world.' No shadows and chiaroscuro exist in the traditionally painted icons. It is as if the giant sun were above the icon figures not allowing any shade to appear. Everything in icons which represents the kingdom of heaven is permeated with light. A shadow is an imperfect and faint representation of a being, an absence of a being and in the ideal and perfect world which icons depict there are only beings and not imitations of beings. In the symbolic tradition, shadows are not only understood as a mere obstructions of light but as dark entities with a nature of their own. In Jung's psychological interpretation, "...human nature is not compounded wholly of light but also abounds in shadows...By 'shadow' Jung means the unconscious instinctual aspects of human personality which in ordinary individuals are not integrated into consciousness. The absence of the contrast of shadow and light in the depiction of icon figures refers, if we are to follow Jung metaphorically, to individuals who are psychologically fully integrated. The unconscious and the conscious are not apart in them but are one inseparable whole. The Orthodox icon painters were very much concerned with luminosity (brightness) and they tend to group colors according to their affinity with light on the one hand and darkness on the other. Their relation to the black/white scale provides their hue. Of three constituents of color: hue, saturation and luminosity (brightness) the use of the latter is particularly prominent in iconic painting. Thus, there are four different luminosities of white and four different words in Byzantine Greek for distinguishing them. On the other hand, Greek words for color are imprecise as they group what we perceive as different hues under the same lexical item. The Greek word for red 'eruthros' ranges in color from 'scarlet' to 'maroon'. When it comes to distinguishing these words it is done by contrasting their relative lightness and darkness. This is one of the reasons why it is difficult to identify a hue both as a signifier and signified ignoring the figure or the object depicted. The white of Christ's robes in the Transfiguration icon, the white of Lazarus's garment and the white of Adam's robe in Anastasis, Christ's descent into hell , have different signifieds and there is no common signified for 'white' in all three cases unless we assign them a positive value which is not saying very much. The term often used for the same hue with different signifieds shows their contextual use. 'Blue' is considered by some researchers to be the color of the divine light. According to the Russian painter Kandinsky blue has a solemn superterrestrial gravity. Christ in the fresco in Sopocani is portrayed wearing a blue mantle while in the scene of the angels and sheep at Sant' Appollinare Nuovo it has almost negative connotation depicting the angel with the goats. In the Serbian icon from the Decani monastery in Kosovo, Icon of the Virgin, Christ is wearing close to his body a blue mantle of the solemn superterrestrial gravity to which Kandinsky refers. On top of the mantle is a bright red gown symbolic of blood and Christ's suffering and death. The icon is a good example in the Serbian iconography of the type called "The Virgin with a playing child" by Lazarev or the Virgin having pity (on the mortals). Characteristic of this type of icon is the intimate proximity of the faces and, in this icon, the clasping of hands. We think of iconic painting as an art, a conscious use of skill and imagination in the production of aesthetic objects. This was not the way icon painting was considered in the medieval period. Skill was necessary, of course, but the main criterion in the evaluation of icons consisted in truthfulness to their prototype, to the saint and the saintly scenes. The icon painting was the holy religious tradition that demanded strict adherence to the canon. Innovation and individuality, which we now consider to be the main criteria of artistic perfection, had no place in icon painting. A comparison can be made here with medieval manuscript writing where the manuscripts had to follow strictly and unconditionally the original. In both cases, more by mistake than by deliberate decision, certain changes were gradually introduced. | ||
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© Maria Poltorak 2003-2010
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