A client recently purchased this little Madonna & Child as a gift, and asked me for a post explaining what I mean by calling it an 'Italianate' icon. It put me quite on the spot, for I've really been using the term very loosely as a personal shorthand to distinguish my two styles of painting: the more austere, 'orthodox' style of Byzantine and Romanesque iconography as opposed to the highly decorative, slightly 'soft focus' style we see in Italian religious painting of the later Middle Ages in the run up to the Renaissance revolution in western art. I make the distinction mainly because I am uncomfortably aware that some parties would hotly argue that the style is 'western', 'sentimental', and 'degenerate', and does not constitute a 'real' icon at all!

​

This is a debate I don't generally care to weigh in on except to reiterate that the word 'icon' is simply a transliteration of the Greek word for picture or image. In a Christian context we often use it to mean a particular type of devotional image reverenced or used for meditative prayer at home or in church.  It has a resonance with St Paul's decription of Jesus Christ as the "icon of the living God" (Colossians Chapt 1). When people talk about an 'Orthodox' or Byzantine icon, these days they usually mean one in a the semi-abstract style of religious art before the influence of Renaissance naturalism, or of photo-realism, or of Victorian sentimentality, or of any number of cultural influences which have come to bear on religious art down the centuries.



​

To illustrate, here are two icons of roughly the same date: the first from Mount Athos in the so-called Byzantine style, and the second by Simone Martini of Siena, part of an altar piece. Plainly they both follow the same essential principles - figures disembodied in eternal light, symbolised by the gold background, the three-quarter turn of the head, the anachronistic robes, the gesture to the book, and so forth. But there are differences in style: the gold in Sienese icons is very ornate with raised or punched patterns: this would have given the surface dynamism in the flickering torchlight of processions and liturgical celebrations. The prismatic highlights on the folds of the robes have a softer, gradual shading, hinting at a development towards the more naturalistic styles of the Renaissance. Another important difference is that the Sienese icon does not have an inscription (the name of the saint, in the top righthand corner of the Vatopedi icon). The inscription remains a defining feature of Eastern Orthodox icons, whereas in the West a system of colour coding and 'attributes' developed whereby a saint could be identified: St Peter carrying keys, St Lucy with her eyes on a plate and so forth.

Delighted yesterday to receive a complimentary copy of a new devotional book from the USA which features my icons! The main author, Dr Carla Sunberg is the president of the Church of the Nazarene's seminary in Kansas, and this little volume has grown out of her PhD researches into the doctrine of theosis, the Cappadocian Mothers, seven extraordinary women from one extraordinary Christian family who lived in Cappadocia (modern Turkey) in the fourth century. The males of the family, who include Basil the Great, are more known these days, so Dr Sunberg is redressing an imbalance in producing this volume of vitae and reflective exercises on these wives, sisters and mothers: all of them saints and spiritual warriors in their own right, some of them powerful land-owning matrons and society ladies, and some who renounced the world for Christ and took up the hermit's life. The author's husband commissioned a whole set of icons honouring the family while the research was in progress, which was a few years ago now. A nice surprise to have them revisited.

Forget the seasonal socks and sweaters, the triennial exhibition of the British Association of Iconographers is taking place in a couple of weeks' time, giving everyone an opportunity to buy a more enduring Christmas gift! Please forward the poster to anyone you think may be interested. St Saviour's church in Lupus Street, a rather fine neo-gothic building,  is also very well placed to combine with a visit to Tate Britain. Both amateur and professional members will be showing and selling work, and there is a programme of lectures by prominent iconographers to accompany the show. Dr Stephane Rene will talk on Coptic iconography in the 21st Century, Aidan Hart will deliver a lecture entitled "The Nature of Divine Beauty: a tough love", and Peter Murphy will  talk about the icons of the Veneto-Cretan Tradition.

I prepared my own little offering during my artist residency in July. Knowing  that I would have to post my icons, and that sending great hunks of wood and gesso across Europe would be expensive, I decided to make a virtue of necessity and treat it as an exercise in painting tiny. My smallest piece is a medallion icon of Christ the Good Shepherd which measures just 4 x 6 cm. The largest is a Nativity illumination on vellum, about 10 cm across. I also re-purposed an old fob watch case to frame a miniature of Archangel Michael, 6 x 6 cm. Which makes the face about a centimetre across - the light was better in July!

The first time I painted a crucifix it was back in 2010. I hadlaunched my website gallery and it was one of the first enquiries I received. I was thrilled. The client had just restored a house on Orkney and wanted a painted crucifix for it. (He asked why I wasn't advertising in The Church Times or The Tablet: but if you've ever inquired about the prices in those two publications you'll know one would have to be more of a Damien Hurst than a penniless iconographer to afford any space there.) That first crucifix of mine was of the type known as 'Christus patiens', showing a dead Christ, eyes closed, bloodied, hanging limp and twisted from his nails. This is the style of crucifix we in Western Europe see more often than the older Byzantine type - 'Christus gloriosus' - where Jesus is shown upright with arms outstretched, eyes open. The famous Franciscan Cross of St Damiano is of this kind.

I recently sent off a commission for two more wonderful Celtic saints - and some more vermilion as it happens, always a passion of mine. Everyone knows of St Kevin, ascetic and abbot, hermit in the Irish wilds for many years. He is feted in verse in the immortal but irreverent Dubliners song ("There was an old Glendalough saint, renowned for his learning and piety. His manners were curious and quaint, and he looked upon girls with disparity"): and in the beautiful poem by Seamus Heaney which meditates on the legend of the blackbird which laid an egg in St Kevin's oustretched hand as he prayed. The poem reveals this parable of Christian self-sacrifice and suffering more eloquently and completely than I ever could either in paint or poetry.

St Melangell's life in Wales is well attested though less written on than Kevin's. Her shrine is still to be visited in Powys and was restored in 1992. St Melangell's legend is of a hare pursued by a hunting nobleman which bounded up and took refuge from the hounds in the folds of her cloak. Reputedly the hare runs fastest uphill and so symbolises the ascent of the human soul escaping the powers of darkness. I am mentally incorporating these two in my 'some day' iconographic project on the new creation.

In the Eastern Orthodox church it is customary to give the bride and groom a pair of icons, Christ Pantocrator and the Theotokos (Mother of God). The icons are a tangible witness to their vows before God and form the basis of the family's prayer corner.

This diptych is my own slightly Italianate interpretation of the Wedding Icons, the hand-gilded and embellished frame and the cosmic background of stars inspired by an old Florentine frame I spied in an antique shop.

Never work with children, animals or (I will add) unfamiliar scripts. St Ephrem (also spelled Ephraim) of Syria was a great theologian and hymn writer of the 4th century whose work seems to have fallen out of use in the West. Some time back I illuminated my own translation of his most famous prayer, though to my chagrin it has not sold yet.

My client for this new icon is an academic and scholar of Syriac, and I rashly agreed to copy the quotation in the original if it could be written out for me. The letters are less than a millimetre high, painted with a 00000 sable brush and written from right to left, as one might expect. Much gnashing of teeth has gone into this. Needless to say my first attempt was unreadable nonsense, but I am assured that the new improved version reads "Praise to the Lord of Nature; and glory to the Lord of Scripture" - or something acceptably close!

​Gregory in Poland contacted me to ask if I would make available a new image of the Venerable Matt Talbot, as he owes his life to the (yet to be declared) saint and is using all his personal resources to publish prayer cards and spread the devotion over the web.

Matt Talbot is known as the saint in overalls, though I think that's a bit off the mark, since he is wearing a perfectly respectable working man's suit in the only photograph we have of him. And he made it his custom to appear very neat and tidy in public. It was a great privilege to research this remarkable story. Outwardly he lived a completely obscure working class life in Victorian and Edwardian Dublin, living quietly through rebellion and unrest, world war and civil war, as well as enduring the daily deprivations of a labourer's life in those harsh times. Only his sudden death in the street on the way to Mass one Sunday revealed the extraordinary 'real' life he led: he was found to be wearing chains under his clothes, those chains still to be seen among his relics. After taking the pledge in his late twenties, through a life of religious devotion and self-mortification he had overcome his alcoholic addiction, educated himself to read works of theology and spent his private life in prayer and contemplation. He is a champion for people around the world fighting addiction to alcohol and drugs.

The photograph in which Matt Talbot appears is a grainy sepia group picture, taken with his workmates in the workshop. His face enlarges to nothing but a smudge, but one can just make out a face in later middle age, bright eyes, a receding hairline, a copious moustache and a certain set of the chin. For the details of his earthly appearance, we have to rely nearly as much on inspiration as we do for his early Celtic predecessors, but the course of his life is much better attested.

Just in time for his feast on 11th February, I was last week delighted to add St Berach of Kilbarry to the little clutch of less known Celtic saints I have been commissioned to paint: another first I think, at least as he is represented on the web. St Berach's life in the 6th century in Ireland has a few well-attested facts and a great number of fairy tales. He was a disciple of St Kevin, built a church, and is still greatly reverenced in Roscommon. This is a hand-sized icon designed to travel with his owner, for whose family St Berach has a special significance.

I drew for my design on the illuminations in the Book of Mulling, which was painted (only!) two hundred years after the death of St Berach. The hairstyle and robes owe a great deal to St John, seen below in the original - faded but still startlingly blond and blue-eyed. For the face and beard I also confess to a touch of The Dubliners in their later manifestation, I'll leave you to guess which one.

Thanks to the generosity of Trinity College, Dublin who own the manuscript and make public their technical researches, I was even able to approximate the pigments used in the original. For other pigment 'anoraks' out there, these were various ochres (John's curls are yellow ochre), indigo blue, organic pinks and purples and orpiment. Orpiment is a startlingly bright lemon yellow, an arsenic compound. I actually have a sample of the pigment, but decided to substitute with a cadmium mix identical in colour but less poisonous. Indigo and organic compounds don't last so well on a panel as between the pages of a book. I used indigo for the underpainting but enhanced it with azurite and egyptian blue: contemporary, but perhaps not easy to obtain in 6th century Ireland. The purple-red is indigo overpainted with natural carmine, but as I did not adopt the flat geometric style of the manuscript I found it necessary to highlight with a little cinnabar: probably just as poisonous as the orpiment I rejected. Ah well... The green background is a mottled application of indigo glazed with yellow ochre and my orpiment substitute.

​To represent his hermitage and the abbey he founded, he is clutching a stone chapel of ancient Irish form. His abbot's crozier I copied from an ancient example dug up in a peat bog. These had a little reliquary chamber in the their ends and were staves of mighty talismanic power with which the early Irish clerics warded off the forces of darkness as they strode around the wild and sodden landscape of pagan Europe. I tell you the Desert Fathers had nothing over these fearsome Celtic hermits and evangelists, they were redoubtable spiritual warriors. They travelled to and fro to Sinai and Byzantium on networking visits, and even spread their mission over here to Austria, in those early days a truly terrifying landscape for any visitor, never mind a stray Christian.

My lovely client in Northern Ireland asked for a Holy Family a bit windswept and shocked by the whole experience of the Nativity! In my understanding this very Catholic feast, celebrated on 31st December, makes important reference to the family of the Holy Trinity and the reciprocal bonds of divine love, so I decided rather to go for slightly careworn and perhaps anticipating pain. In the end I worked without reference to any prototype icon, as I find most of them horribly sentimental and inappropriate to the cosmic grandeur of the underlying meanings. So I have drawn Jesus not as a baby but as Christ Emmanuel with arms outstretched in a crucifixion/embracing pose. The three intersecting haloes extending into the borders are also intentionally symbolic.