How to Paint An Icon



Athanasios (Tom) Clark's mosaic icon at Saint John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church

Mark 1:1-8

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the Prophets:

“Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, Who will prepare Your way before You.”
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make His paths straight”...

When it comes to creating Christian art, my religious tradition doesn't really have a dog in the race. As far as aesthetics go Black Baptists are known for our tradition of illustrating church fans with either pictures of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahalia Jackson or the nearest funeral home (who donated them). Our Pentecostal cousins, the Church of God In Christ have that stain glass mosaic at West Angeles behind Bishop Charles E. Blake that makes him look like the host of a mid 70's episode of Soul Train introducing Earth Wind and Fire. Besides some grandiose Anglican cathedrals and a few ornate Lutheran pulpits we Protestants aren't as strong our Christian brothers in other traditions. Oh wait, we have amazing architecture in mega churches like the Crystal Cathedral. But then again we just sold that church building to the Catholics. That's usually the general sentiment: the Catholics have all of the good stuff. And for the most part that is true. For centuries Catholics have invested heavily in preaching the Gospel in a visual medium and illustrating the greats of Christian history. Much of Protestantism's lack of art us due to an iconoclastic reaction to Catholicism. Even with their sibling rivalry, these two are the segmented face of Western Christianity (even when they manifest as a South Korean Assemblies of God congregation or an order of the Missionaries of Charity nuns in India). But however advanced our mega churches or awe inspiring our cathedrals Western Christianity's incorporation and reverence of religious art is dwarfed by Eastern Christianity. Whether they be Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox or what have you, art is not just used for beautification of the building or illustration of the Preaching but also as means if worship. This is most prominently seen in the Orthodox use of icons. A general disagreement about the use and misuse of images leads to many a Protestant accusing the Eastern Orthodox of idolatry and the overly intimate veneration of these icons even makes many Catholics nervous. Since icons are criticized and (understandably) misunderstood in the West, combined with the ancient aesthetic style of icons many Christians are unaware that there are still artists who regularly icons for a living. Meet Athanasios (Tom) Clark... We'll just call him Tom. Tom's resume shows that he is responsible for painting miniature icons, making mosaics and constructing enormous icon murals in Orthodox churches in cities and towns all over America (and beyond). Born into a Greek-American community in Chicago, Tom later went on to study iconography from a master iconographer in Thessaloniki, Greece. While there he learned to produce icons of the greats of the faith that were faithful to the depictions throughout the centuries. In Western Christendom we may see these flatly painted, ornate gold leaf images as repetitive and unoriginal but in the Eastern traditions the older is deemed as better and more theologically trustworthy. While their disobedience to the Renaissance rediscovery if the perception of space, light and treatment of perspective may not realistically depict the visual truth of this world, the Orthodox believe that its heavy symbolic nature faithfully represent the theological truth of the next world. After all the iconographers illustrate these men and women as those that have reached full sanctification (what the Orthodox call "theosis"). Even those are theological and aesthetic concepts that are far from my Western take on Art or religion, I must admit that today's reading of Mark 1:1-8 causes me to reflect on their parallel. I must confess that we in Western Christianity may have a few icons of our own. When we read about John the Baptist  we often bring to it flatly painted, repetitive and unoriginal images that we regurgitate from our traditions and sermons. There is nothing wrong with tradition (in theology it is far better than just making up new stuff with no basis), however, in the case of John the Baptist it betrays that fact that as readers are not actively engaging the text of Scripture. The Gospels reveal that "the Baptist" was far more than this title displays. He was a robust and significant character possessing light, shadow and depth. All of these are properly understood and appreciated when we see John in the context that the writer of the Gospel of mark has put him in: in the company if the Prophets. He quotes Malachi alluding to Elijah and follows it with Isaiah. He baptized in the context of it being a prophetic action. Every aspect of his ministry shined a light on his role in the prophetic tradition. Analyzing the Eastern Christian and Western Christian art depictions of John will aid us in understanding the fullness of his character and as a character in the Gospels.  

Domenico Ghirlandaio's fresco Zechariah Writes Down the Name of His Son (1490, fresco in the Tornabuoni Chapel, Florence)

John the Levite

..John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins...

To understand the greater significance of John's baptism we will start with two images that feature John but do not feature the act of baptism. The first is the Western fresco by the artist Domenico Ghirlandaio's entitled Zechariah Writes Down the Name of His Son. In this wall mural the artist reminds us of the birth narrative of John the Baptist in Luke 1:5-25 and 1:57-79. In it we discover that John's father Zacharias was a temple priest in Jerusalem. All priests and temple workers (known as Levites) came exclusively from the tribe of Levi. He is even told of John's birth by the Angel of the Lord while he is performing temple rituals. Specifically he was burning incense but there were many rituals to be performed in the temple. The most famous religious rituals that occurred in the temple were the various sacrifices there but there were also ritual cleansings. The ritual cleansing that was most important, was the Mikveh. It was necessary to perform before one could even enter the
temple. Mikvehs were performed on people and objects for various reasons but by the first century (and in present day Orthodox Judaism) its most popular application is for conversion. So (for worshipers) to enter the temple, (for objects) to be used for religious purposes or (for Gentiles) to become part of the religion one had to be ritually washed. Relating to God through worship required purity. By now you have probably gathered that John the Baptist was performing a mikveh. What was peculiar about his was that he was performing not performing on Gentile converts but rather on Jews. Another peculiar thing about John's baptism was that it was not done for those who were about to enter the temple. The wilderness that he baptized in was nowhere near Jerusalem. His baptism/mikveh was not for external ritual purity but rather for internal spiritual purity. It was for repentance. Why was John doing this? The second image that clarifies things for us is the Eastern icon from the Holy Cross Monastery in Jerusalem entitled Zechariah and St. John the Baptist. In this image the iconographer fills the composition with two solitary figures, demanding that the viewer compare and contrast them. Both are bearded holy men who were prophetic New Testament figures. Both have the blood of Levi and Aaron flowing through their veins and due to this lineage 

Zechariah and St. John the Baptist,
medieval Georgian fresco from
Holy Cross Monastery in Jerusalem

perform certain ritualistic priestly functions. maybe Zecharias performed mikvehs like his son. The difference was that one of these men worked in the temple and the other one seemed to work in spite of it. There were plenty of priests and Levites performing Mikvehs in Jerusalem, yet the Gospel tells us that multitudes left Jerusalem to be baptized of John 9and not the temple priests). John was intentionally working outside of the temple system as a judgment of that system and the religious leadership of that day. The Zechariah and St. John the Baptist icon reveals an important principle. John the Baptist's was not necessarily opposed to his father's ministry as a priest but it was critical of the priesthood of the day. Priests and all Levites have their own tribe, so there are a plethora of clergyman in each generation (a whole tribe full). On the contrary the office of a prophet is not one that one was just born into. They were few and far between. God usually used them as a check and balance on the priestly caste. The existence of a prophet showed a lack or a problem. God was sending his own internal affairs officer to get his priestly agents in check. When John baptized in the wilderness it was a prophetic judgment on the temple and the corruption that was practiced within. It also enlarges our perspective of John as a prophet and our understanding of the role of prophets in general in Scripture. Being a Prophet was a response and critique to the existing organized religious hierarchy. 

John the Baptist (John in the Wilderness), Caravaggio 

John the Ascetic

...Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey... 

As we start to understand the implications of John's prophetic actions we are driven to take a deeper look at every aspect of the Baptist. The Gospel writer focuses in his investigative lens, cropping out all extraneous details until we are left with a close up of the prophet alone. As in the Western, Baroque oil painting John the Baptist (John in the Wilderness),by the master Caravaggio, John the Baptist is all by himself John is by himself with the darkness behind him. The technique of tenebrism displays the prophets stark view of reality being comprised of the stark polarity between (spiritual) light and dark. Darkness has corrupted the Levitical priesthood in Jerusalem, yet he is not without light. He has received the light and beckons those in the dark to repent and bask in the light as he does. ItIt is this Light in the form of Jesus that he will indeed testify to is the light that comes from above that shines the brightest on him. This is the Divine Light of God. It is the Light that the Gospel of John describes as "shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.". So there John sits alone in the wilderness as the misunderstood companion of a misunderstood Light. That brings us to the second title that John is deserving of: the Ascetic. Above anything John was a man who had intentionally moved into the desert to live a hard life for a spiritual purpose. But why would he do this? John was not driven out of town because everyone hated him. On the contrary, his fiery rhetorical style seemed draw the crowds. Just like his outfit, which was reminiscent of Elijah (to which Caravaggio adds a prophetic mantle so that we definitely get the picture), every aspect of John's life of hardship was a prophetic sermon acted out. Many theologians have connected John to the Essenes, a first century Jewish sect (that we know of through the writings of Josephus) because they to were ascetics who practiced ritual immersion. This may be the case but I think that we should focus on another group that is actually cited within the narrative of John's birth (from the angel's instruction to Zacharias). It is a group that has several other instances of documentation in the Old and New Testament. We are told that from birth onward John was a Nazirite. This involved taking a vow of abstinence from certain things (like alcohol, dead bodies and hair cutting) for a temporary fast (like St. Paul in Acts) or a lifelong calling (like Sampson in Judges). The Nazirite vow was one taken in service of the Lord. And in John's case it also seemed to a testament of rejection of the world system. John's prophetic and ascetic lifestyle as a Nazirite was intentionally counterculture. His prophetic message of repentance that was critical of religious corruption was also a call to the multitudes to be countercultural. His message was that God was not pleased in the sacrifices made in Jerusalem if they were made without a contrite heart. John had left that system because God had left that system. He was one who had intentionally chose the hard life as a lifestyle of penance and repentance... and he was calling the nation to follow suit. For John, being a prophet was worshiping God outside of the broken spiritual system. Being Prophetic was countercultural


Abraham Bloemaert, John the Baptist Preaching

John the Evangelist

...And he preached, saying, “There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose. I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit”...

I first saw the Western oil painting John the Baptist Preaching by Abraham Bloemaert as a young boy. Until recently, I hadn't seen it since I was about ten years old or so. Yet it stayed foggily in my memory. All of these years I remembered it as  "John the Baptist Preaching to the Dutch." My memory added the "to the Dutch" part to remind me of the initial reason of why I noticed it. Even as a child I realized that the painting was anachronistic. The painter had intentionally painted a first century robed, Palestinian prophet preaching to post Renaissance Dutchman in bonnets, pants and (I assume) wooden shoes. The painter is aware that he is mixing time periods. but in doing so he highlights an overlooked truth: Prophesy is anachronistic. Prophesy that involves foretelling future events is an act of anachronism. It is placing two things that shouldn't be in the same scene (time wise) and painting them together. The actions of three years into the future should not be coming from John's lips. Added to that is the fact that many of these details are even after John's own death. They are not only in the future, they are actually beyond his own future. Yes John would live to see Christ's ministry but he would die before the Holy Spirit infused ministry of the Apostles. This is the continuing anachronism of the prophetic tradition: Malachi should not know of the goings on of John the Baptist hundreds of years after his own death. The greatest anachronism in all of this is in titling John the Evangelist. Properly termed an evangelist is one who is sent out to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ... but Christ had not come yet. There was no Gospel yet. Yet that is what these verses reveal him to be. He spread the evangelistic message of the Gospel before the Good News was even enacted. That is because the prophets acted on God's time. They not only foretold (what would happen) but told forth the Word of God (what should be happening). When John testified of Jesus and the coming Holy Spirit it was a prophetic indictment of the present age for not jiving with God's notion of what it should be. Being a Prophet was announcing that God was replacing the what is with the what should be. Being a prophet was sharing this as Good News.


Deesis, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey

John the Forerunner

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the Prophets:
“Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, Who will prepare Your way before You.”

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; Make His paths straight.’”

The Eastern mosaic icon Deesis in the Hagia Sophia brings this discussion back to where we started. Deesis does not just refer to this one image, but just like all icons it is a genre of this type of image that has been repeatedly reproduced by iconographers throughout the ages. Deesis literally means "Prayer" or "supplication" which is what all icons could be understood as. A means to connect to God. A visual medium which like the verbal medium of a prayer, the musical medium of the hymn or the physical medium of church architecture is used to meditate, commune and converse with God. I may have theological and practical differences with our Orthodox brethren but the Deesis icon allows me to appreciate where we can find common ground. It is because in every Deesis image we find John and the Virgin Mary flanking Jesus in supplication, prayer and worship. It shows the nature of the prophecy of John the Prophet. The Orthodox will occasionally refer to John as John the Baptist but the preferred title that they give to him is John the Forerunner. This may be the fullest explanation of John's ministry as a prophet. One who Jesus described as the greatest prophet:

Luke 7:26-30
But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written:

‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face,
Who will prepare Your way before You.’

For I say to you, among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” And when all the people heard Him, even the tax collectors justified God, having been baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.

John was a prophet of Jesus the Prophet... of course I know that Jesus was "more than just a prophet." He was the Son of God. But in revealing so he practiced a prophetic ministry. Jesus was not a Levite but as a prophet he was critical of the organized religious system of the day. Jesus was not a full time Ascetic but the Kingdom that he preached of was countercultural. Jesus was not an Evangelist per se as much as he was the Evangel,,, the Gospel and Good News itself. And he prophesied of a people, a nation, a Church that would live prophetically. He prophesied that the Body of Christ would live transformative lives that testify not of a future time but rather of a present reality that has been changed by the presence of God that lives within us. A people that are iconic.