Introduction_to_Art_of_Seeing.pdf

8/20/2019 Introduction_to_Art_of_Seeing.pdf

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Introduction

This book studies icons and iconographic themes in the light oOrthodox theology, making special use o perspectives and insights

rom the patristic interpretation o Scripture. Te Fathers o the Church

were inspired interpreters o sacred texts, and there can be little doubtthat they were equally gifed at interpreting sacred images, or theythemselves closely supervised the making o icons and oversaw thedesign and decoration o churches. Te vital role o the Fathers in theormation o Christian iconography was recognized by the Sev enthEcumenical Council, which affirmed that “the making o icons is notthe property o artists, but is an established law and tradition o theChurch … or to the artist belongs only the execution o the image,

whereas its content and design belong to the holy Fathers” (Mansi,:).

Te purpose o these introductory remarks is to set orth the principles o patristic hermeneutics that rame and inorm this study.Needless to say, an exhaustive treatment o these principles is beyondthe scope o this introduction, which is limited to the presentation okey concepts that are employed throughout the book. At this point, weshould consider these concepts as the working elements o a necessar-

ily tentative theoretical ramework. As an essentially heuristic device,the relevance o this ramework to the interpretation o icons will be-come increasingly clear in the course o the ollowing chapters, when,that is, we have beore us actual icons that will react upon the rame andlead to its enlargement and modification.

Te patristic interpretation o Scripture is more an art than a sci-ence, and so the use o patristic hermeneutical principles in the analy-sis o icons cannot, or at least should not, be the mechanical applica-tion o a rigid set o categories. A flexible method, then, rather than afixed canon, will prove to be the most ruitul path o approach. Farrom aiming to establish anything like a systematic set o rules or the


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decoding o icons, this book is contextual in its approach, inter-disci- plinary in scope, and, with some o the unavoidably experimental spir-it o the pioneer, aims to open up pathways into what is still largely

uncharted territory.Such an approach is also determined by the act that patristiccommentaries on the books o the Bible ar surpass the number o pa-tristic works that deal with sacred images and other visual expressions othe Church’s theolog y. We are consequently much better inormedabout how the Fathers understood sacred Scripture than we areabout how they understood the meaning o particular icons, churcharchitecture, or the symbolism o liturgical movements and gestures.

Even so, the relevant sources—which include commentaries on the Di- vine Liturgy, theological treatises on icons, and occasional pieces deal-ing with specific paintings or images—are more than sufficient to in-dicate that the Fathers o the Church understood sacred texts and im-ages in similar and ofen the same ways. And this is exactly what weshould expect given the interdependence o the verbal and the visualin Byzantine civilization and in Orthodox Christianity more generally.Te reader is thereore encouraged to hear in what is said about the pa-

tristic interpretation o sacred texts a series o analogous propositionsconcerning the interpretation o icons.

B A

o be sure, the undamental approach o the Fathers to sacred wordsand imag es is one and the same: an act o sustained, concentrated at-tention. I this seems obvious, it may perhaps bear some underlining,

since we live in an age o diminished attention spans, have been socializedin a culture o organized distractions, and tend to rush (or to be rushed)rom one fleeting image to the next.

What do we mean, then, when we speak o an act o sustained,concentrated attention? Not to run rom one thought to the next, butto give each one time to settle in the heart. o collect one’s cognitive,

volitional, and sensory aculties in the initial perception o what is saidor appears. Attention, rom this point o view, means to accept what isgiven just as it offers itsel to us, whether in our basic engagement withthe plain sense o a word or phrase, or in our perceptual awareness othe physical appearance o an image. It means a readiness or, and an


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Introduction

openness to, another orm which is different rom me, which activelyapproaches me rom outside o mysel, offers itsel to me as a gif, wellingup to the surace rom some mysterious depth.

Far rom being a spontaneous or “natural” response (although itmay begin as such), such attention requires continual effort, will likelybe the ruit o many ailed attempts, and thus has a distinctive moralcomponent. It includes a certain degree o commitment, o patience,o time, a waiting on the object that is beore us, a humble obedienceto it, or there is a sense in which it offers itsel to me only as much as Irenounce my own ability to grasp and comprehend it. Attention in thissense is a reusal to pander to the sel, to the desire to cling to a particular

thought, idea, or way o looking at things—simply because it is “my” way o looking at things—and this is an act o sel-denial, o continu-ous sel surrender, which at the same time is a progressive entrance intothe mystery o that which makes itsel present to me.

o the extent that attention requires the letting go o attachments,illusions, prejudices, and the projection o personal desires, it has arelatively passive side, a “keeping still” (Ps :), in which I experiencethe sheer perceptual weight o the orm as it impresses itsel upon me,

pours itsel into me, fills my senses and pervades my being. But there isan active side as well, or attention does not result in the loss or dullingo the senses, but in their true awakening, which, as we said a momentago, is an engagement with the content o perception, an entry into theinner logic o what is seen or heard, a deepening into the interiority othe surace phenomenon, in the desire to understand, not simply whatone sees, but what one should believe.

Tere are o course many reasons why a mindul, disciplined

ordering o the data o experience is necessary, but here it will sufficeto say that interpretation is both possible and necessary because theorm I see is a truly historical orm, and thus it does not appear in iso-lation, but embedded within a diverse and multilayered context. I can-not readily remove it rom this context, or it is the ulfillment o all theother orms that point to it, and not their abolition or destruction (c.Mt :). In respect o sacred Scripture, the historical orm is present inthe plain, literal sense o the words, which give shape and direction tothe text’s proper interpretation, like a seed containing within itsel aorest o significations. Te Fathers did not leave such ertile grounduncultivated, and accordingly made extensive use o the best philological


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and historical tools that were then available in order to draw out, clariy,and expound the basic meaning o the text.

Tis does not mean that the Fathers o the Church read Scripture

in a theolog ical vacuum, allowing themselves to be led about by thelogic o historical methodologies. Instead, they worked within a livingtradition o interpretation, within a community o aith and practice,and so ethical and theological commitments constitute an essential

part o the context in which they encounter, experience, and interpretthe Bible. Tis becomes especially important when problems arise in

what we might call the text’s surace appearance, such as a disruptionomeaning or a lack o coherence caused by an apparent sel-contradiction

or a strong logical paradox. I Scripture portrays God as “burning withanger” (Ex :), it also declares that “God is love” ( John :); i it provides God with an array o body parts (Ex :), it also teaches that“God is spirit” ( John :), seemingly contradictory propositions thatcan be resolved only in the light o a proper theological ramework. Inthe words o St. Irenaeos, the interpreter who works without such a ramework, that is, outside the tradition o the Church, is like an artist

who does not know how to put in proper order the pieces o a mosaic,and so instead o producing a portrait o the king, depicts the image oa dog (SC :).

Contrary to what we might expect, raming the Bible theologicallydoes not mean that whatever is strange or different, or which appearsto contradict the aith o the Church, is simply suppressed or editedout o the picture. Mindul attention to the text, as described above,does not allow or such a acile dismissal o what is so egregiously given.On the contrary, difficult passages, precisely because o their difficulty,

were traditionally said to have had a special unction within the largerabric o meaning, constituting a positive challenge to the mind that

perceives them. In general terms, problems in suraceappearances preventreaders rom adopting a simple, uncomplicated attitude to the texts in

which they appear. In the context o Scripture, difficult and obscure passag es, marred by a lack o coherence or credibility on a literal level,have the pow er to jar and unsettle the mind, and so unction as the

primary indicators that a deeper meaning is concealed beneath thesurace. I some passages o Scripture are like clear springs bubbling uptheir meaning directly to the surace, others are like dark wells concealingunknown depths, where greater effort is required to draw out meaning.Te same is true o images.


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D I

Surely the most striking instance o this way o thinking is ex-

pressed by St. Dionysios the Areopagite. In his treatise On the Celestial Hierarchy, Dionysios acknowledges that human beings cannot be“raised up directly” to the heights o spiritual contemplation, but in-stead require the use o visible symbols, that is, complex representationso what in itsel is utterly simple, the multiorm visualizations o whatin itsel is beyond vision. Tese symbols, which Dionysios calls “cover-ings” or “veils,” unction as passages between two levels o experience,and he contends that “inadequate and incongruous” symbols are su-

premely effective in carry ing us across the threshold, insoar as theirsheer illogicality prevents us rom associating the divine with anythingearthly, and so spurs the mind into an attitude o spiritual contempla-tion. Naturalistic, aesthetically pleasing images may be good art, butthey will not necessarily take us ar in the direction o the transcendent,and indeed may lead us to fixate upon the surace, having mistaken itor the depth. And it was precisely “to avoid such misunderstandingsamong those incapable o rising above visible beauty that the biblical

authors wisely made use o incongruous dissimilarities, or by doingthis they took account o our inherent tendency toward the materialand our willingness to be satisfied by base images. At the same time,they enabled that part o the soul which longs or the things above ac-tually to rise up. Indeed the sheer crassness o the signs is a goad so thateven the materially inclined cannot accept them at ace value” (BC).Here the question turns on biblical images o God and the angels in

which human orms are combined with those o animals, or angels are

not literally “di erent colored horses,” or “flying men with multipleanimal heads,” or “whirling wheels o fire filled with eyes” (Zech :;Ezek :-) (A-D), to say nothing o the various anatomical

parts—male, emale, human and animal—variously attributed to God(A).

Dionysios observes that these images “create the impression ooutstanding absurdity, expressing truth with secret and daring riddles”(B). Tis, he contends, is the mode o representation in which “thehidden is brought out into the open, the undivided divided, and theormless and shapeless clothed in multiple shapes and orms. Te onecapable o seeing the beauty hidden within these images will discover


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that they are truly mysterious, appropriate to God, and filled with greattheological light” (CD). Without in any way denying the realityand goodness o created orms, Dionysios holds that they are the

ex pressions o a deeper or higher reality, which is the source o theirunity. Tings, then, are not altogether what they seem, and meaningulcontents may be concealed behind unprepossessing exteriors, so thateven the seemingly absurd—along with the despised, the ridiculed, orthat which is simply overlooked—may be the precious vessels o light.

S B C S

Dionysios’ doctrine o “dissimilar images” was deeply rooted in atradition o interpretation common to all the schools o Christian an-tiquity. Tese paradoxical images, remarkable or their failure to signiy,attracted the attention o the early Alexandrian theologians, and weresubsequently taken up by the Cappadocian Fathers, St. John Chrysos-tom, St. Cyril o Alexandria, and St. Maximos the Conessor, to men-tion only a ew. All o these writers tend to work with a common set odefinitions based on the reader’s response to the image in question. I an

image was seen to be difficult, contradictory, or offensive, it was reerredto as a “stumbling block,” strategically placed within the sacred text inorder to engage the attention o the reader. I the principal difficultyconronting the reader was the text’s sheer impenetrability—such as anobject or image that could barely be named, let alone described or un-derstood—it was classified as an instance o biblical “obscurity.”

Tese views consistently presuppose a larger doctrine o biblicalinspiration, such as that which we find in Origen o Alexandria, who

was among the first to map the surace o the sacred text. For Origen,every word o Scripture is “di vinely inspired” ( im :), and every

particle o it is able to yield a sense useul or salvation. However, notevery particle is susceptible to the common modalities o sense percep-tion and understanding. Tis is because the “object” o the text, itsdeeper meaning, is ultimately God, who is universally present in Scrip-ture just as he is in creation. And just as one can be ignorant o the prov idential workings o God in creation, one can also be ignorant othe deeper meaning o certain obscure or difficult passages o Scripture.

Origen argues that such passages, which contain seemingly irrec-oncilable contradictions or material that is illogical or offensive, have


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Introduction

been deliberately placed throughout Scripture by the Holy Spirit. Te purpose o these passag es, which interrupt the continuity o the narra-tive by the introduction o non-representational elements, is to con-

ront the reader with an unresolvable paradox and so drive the mind tothe spiritual level on which such passages have their proper resolutionand meaning. Like a detour made necessary by an insurmountable ob-stacle, paradox marked the way, the mysterious path o ascent, but italso designated the place, or it was the symptom, the sign, the irrup-tion into the world o something beyond the world.

At the heart o these paradoxes was the mystery o God in Christ,to whom the “first are last and the last are first” (Mt :), in whom

“oolishness” was “exalted wisdom,” and or whom the “weak, the low,and the despised” were chosen “to put to shame the strong” (c. Cor:-). With its radical reversal o worldly values and expectations,the Gospel stands in marked contrast to the logic o the classical tra-dition, with its emphasis on human wisdom, physical beauty, andclarity o expression. According to Origen, the Gospel’s rejection othese values is the very sign o its truth, or had it been “dressed inelegant Greek attire” it might be said to have seduced its ollowers by

means o su perficial beauty (SC :). o be sure, in conrontingthe reader with what was paradoxical, obscure, intractable, and o-ensive, the word o God does not aim to please the senses, but tooverwhelm them.

Tat ill-proportioned “earthen vessels” were now the symptoms otranscendent truths (c. Cor :) was a turn o events that signaled,among other things, the advent o a distinctive new aesthetic. Here itrequires no great leap o the imagination to see in Origen’s contrast be-

tween philosophical clarity and biblical obscurity an analogy to con-trasting traditions in the visual arts. o carry this analogy orward, it ishelpul to recall the phenomenological distinction that modern think-ers have made between the “idol” and the “icon.” Beyond their artisticdifferences, the idol and the icon indicate two modes o being, variationsin the mode o visibility, which give shape to variations in the mode odivine apprehension. Te idol delights in physical existence, in the de-light we experience in vision itsel, and its highest aim is to make thatdelight perceptible to us. In concretizing the splendor o the visible, theidol dazzles and so arrests our vision, confining it within a closed, sel-reerential system, allowing us to see nothing outside itsel. Te idol


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consequently reduces the divine to the measure o the human gaze, ar-resting the movement o ascent precisely at the threshold o the invisible.

Te icon, on the other hand, aims neither to satiate vision, nor to

restrict it to a particular point, but to ree it by conronting it with theinvisible, pro posing to it that the boundaries o the possible are widerthan they seem. In using images to overthrow the power o images, theicon seeks to disrupt habituated ways o seeing, to subvert the hege-mony o naturalistic representation, and so summon the eye to a newmode o vision, by opening it up to infinite depth. God is not a finiteobject that we can hold within vision, but an infinite mystery, an inex-haustible personal plenitude that always has something more to re veal

to us in an endless transormation rom glory to glory (c. Cor :).In seeking presence over representation, the makers o icons radi-cally transormed the canons o classical art. No longer bound to thedepiction o idealized nudes, they abandoned sculpture or mosaic and

painting. At the same time, they reconfigured the body on the basis oa new canon o proportions, and related the sacred figures directly tothe beholder, upon whom the icon’s enlarged eyes were now squarelyfixed. Minimal effort was given to creating a sense o time and place,

and when not floating on a ground o golden light, the figures wereramed by attenuated architectural orms o inconsistent scale, ren-dered in inverted perspective. Classical elements, however, were notrejected altogether, but combined with the new anti-classical orms,making the icon a bridge between the old nature and the new (c. Cor:; Jas :; Rev :). Origen’s predecessor, Clement o Alexandria,describes his own literary style precisely as a studied mixture o theseheterogeneous elements, “an artless work o art that mixes the truth

with Greek philosophy, artully concealing the seeds o knowledgeamong loams o learning, so that they may be sought afer with desire,and unearthed only afer much toil” (SC :-).

Origen’s hermeneutical principles were spared the condemna-tion that later beell his speculative theology, because or the most

part these principles were not his at all, but rather the common pos-session o the Church. Tus, one hundred years afer his death, whenSt. Basil o Caesarea and St. Gregory the Teologian compiled ananthology o the great Alexandrian’s writings, they devoted o its chapters to excerpts dealing with the interpretation o the Bible.And o these chapters, are concerned with the nature o bibli-


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Introduction

cal “obscurity” and the presence in the Bible o various “stumblingblocks” (SC ).

In consequence o the study and reflection that lay behind the

work o compilation, these hermeneutical principals became integralelements in the theology o the two compilers. St. Gregory, or example, was keenly aware o the ambiguity inherent in all language, o theimpossibility o ashioning perect similitudes o the divine nature, inrespect o which all images are dissimilar. At the same time, the dualityo every sign could serve to express the mystery o Christ, who is botha “stumbling block” and a “oundation stone.” o those who worshipidols and adhere to the surace o the text, Christ rises up like a “rock

o offense” (Rom :; Pet :). But to those whose “minds are estab-lished in Christ, and in whom alone they walk and make progress”—and note the paradox o the mind as both “established” and “making

progress”—“the ‘offendingrock’ becomes the ‘corner stone o the oun-dation’ (Eph :; Pet :-)” (PG :). Gregory has requent re-course to the image o the hermeneutical “stumbling block,” and weshall consider a key example o it in chapter .

On the basis o certain passages in St. Basil’s Homilies on the Six

Days of Cre ation, modern scholars have argued that their author wasgiven exclusively to literal interpretations o Scripture. But this is mis-leading, since Basil elsewhere makes ample use o Origen’s spiritualhermeneutics (PG :). Moreover, in his On the Holy Spirit , Basilassociates the “obscurity” o Scripture with the “silence and secrecy”that surround the mysteries o the Church, or which he sees a parallelin “the veil that Moses placed between the inner mystery and those whocontemplated it rom without.” Tis association, moreover, occurs in

the midst o Basil’s celebrated distinction between “dogma” and “keryg-ma”: “Dogma is one thing, kerygma another; the first is observed insilence, while the latter is proclaimed to the world. One orm o silenceis the obscurity ound in certain passages o Scripture, which makes themeaning o some dogmas difficult to perceive or the reader’s own ad-

vantage” (SC :; c. PG :A).For Basil’s brother, St. Gregory o Nyssa, biblical obscurity is an

extension o the “divine darkness,” the cloud o inscrutability that sur-rounded God on Sinai (GNO :). Obscurity is sublime preciselybecause it is the rustration o vision, which may also be clouded by theconusing juxtaposition o contradictory assertions. It was not clear, or


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example, why the “vision o God” promised to “the pure in heart” inthe Gospel o Matthew (Mt :) was contradicted by the Gospel o

John, which contends that “no man has seen God at any time” (John

:). Te inconsistency in the sacred text is not simply a literary or his-torical problem, but an existential one, and Nyssa endeavors both tonegate and a firm the “dizzying” contradiction, the sharp stone o whichcalls orth a remarkable exegesis in which the paradox is resolved with-out compromise to its constituent elements (GNO /:-).

Perhaps the last great representative o this tradition, prior to theend o the late-antique period, was St. Maximos the Conessor. Trough-out his writings we encounter the notion that “paradoxical elements”

have been “mingled into the historical narrative o Scripture, in orderthat we should seek afer the true meaning o what is written” (CCSG:; c. CCSG :). Across the pag es o Maximos’ Bible, exegeti-cal challenges rise up like sheer cliff aces, and we have ample opportu-nity to observe his ingenious efforts to scale them, along with thebreathtaking vistas obtained rom the heights, captured like a series oopen-air sketches in his “Notes on Impassable Passages” (i.e., the Am-bigua). As sense perception deepens into spiritual contemplation, vi-

sion is flooded with clariying light, or “contemplation alone is theresolution o things which at the literal level seem contradictory, sinceit can demonstrate the truth which is incorporeal in all things” (PG:). It would take us too ar afield even to touch on the broadoutlines o the Conessor’s elaborate hermeneutics, in which the Logos,clothed in the colors o the natural and the written law, expands andcontracts in and out o various degrees o visibility, subject to suddenerasure by apophatic reversals and enigmas o absence and presence, all

on a vast canvas woven o cosmology, theological anthropology, spiri-tual pedagogy, and eschatology (Blowers, ). For now, our own trailcalls us orward.

P’ P

Many o the ideas described above have antecedents in the Greek philosophical tradition, especially in the stages o spiritual ascent out-lined in the works o Plato. Roughly speaking, the potentially transor-mative disturbance triggered by the Bible’s “stumbling blocks” corre-sponds to the soul’s initial moment o awak ening, its realization that


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Introduction

the sensual perception o surace phenomena ails to disclose a complete view o reality, and must thereore be augmented, revised, andtranscended. Here it is worth stressing that, to the ancient Athenians,

Socrates himsel was a massive “stumbling block,” that is, an externallyugly man o unorgettable inner beauty, a conusing combination osimpleton and sage, a relentless, troublesome, disconcerting “gadfly,”

who drove his interlocutors to an awareness o the linguistic flaw that was at the basis o their aulty construction o reality ( Apology E).Trough his mask o mediocrity, the philosopher mediated the tran-scendent ideal o wisdom to concrete human reality.

Te Cratylus is rightly considered the undamental Socratic dia-

logue on the problem o language, yet it also addresses the nature o vi-sual images. At a certain stage in the dialogue, Socrates argues that allimages are necessarily dissimilar to their originals, or i they were liketheir originals in every way, they would not be images at all, but rathersomething like genetic “duplicates” (like an “image” o Cratylus, Socratessuggests, which reproduced Cratylus’ mind and body, complete withunctioning organs) (BC). It ollows that verbal descriptions andartistic images alike can only approximate the person or object described

or depicted; they can never attain to complete identity, or by definitionthey are incapable o reproducing all the qualities o their reerents.

Tis incisive definition lays open the ambiguous, equivocal char-acter o every image, and exposes the dilemma at the heart o all repre-sentation. We find essentially the same ormulation in St. John o Da-mascus, who states that “an image is a likeness depicting the original but

with a certain difference, or an image is not like its original in every way” ( Images .). o this he adds that “every image is both like and un-

like its prototype, or the image is one thing, and that which it imagesis another” ( Images .) (Kotter, :-; ). Tis isthe great paradoxo the icon, at once its weakness and its strength. As the “likeness” osomething else, icons bear certain ormal points o resemblance to that

which they portray. Yet the very word “likeness” implies that their re-semblance is not absolute, and so the Damascene says that they are also“unlike their prototypes.” By definition, then, every icon is both con-tinuous and discontinuous with its source; both similar and dissimilarto that which it reflects.

From this point o view, icons are not so much transparent win-dows through which we may gaze more or less directly on physical ob-


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jects, but work more like mirrors, on whose suraces we see, not theobjects themselves, but only their distorted reflections. Objects seen ina mirror stand in a dynamic relation to their source, or they appear

only in virtue o the immediate and continuous presence o the actualobject, apart rom which they have no existence. However, their appearance exhibits significant differences which make them essentiallyunlike the actual source o reflection. Most notably, the structure o theobject appears reversed, so that its right side appears on the lef, and wesee it only in two dimensions, flattened to the surace o the distortingglass. Analogous to the model o reflection, all representation (literaryor artistic) is a kind o distorting mirror, a shining surace on which we

glimpse the adverted figure o an enigma, “or now we know in part, we see in a glass darkly” (c. Cor :). And we cannot do withoutsuch mirrors, or despite their shortcomings they are all that we have.

Plato himsel recognized and accepted these exigencies, whichcontribute to his complex views concerning the paradox o representa-tion. Although he is ofen described as having been hostile to art, itshould not be orgotten that, in the midst o his celebrated attackagainst visual images, the principal weapon is itsel an image, the a-

mous “Allegory (literally: image/eikon) o the Cave” ( Re public B).As is well known, Plato here grants images a mediating role in the as-cent toward the light o knowledge, a critical point to which he returnsin Letter . In this text, Plato recognizes three types o “images” thatserve to mediate truth: () a word (or name), () a verbal description,and () a visual image. Te word “circle,” or example, names a particu-lar object, and thereby brings it to our mind. Te same object, more-over, may also be made known as “that thing which has everywhere

equal distances between its extremities and its center.” Finally, the ideao a circle may be mediated to us by the visible figure o a circle, o thekind which may be “drawn and then erased, or carved and then broken”(BC). o be sure, each o these three alls short in perectly repro-ducing the object, since even a finely drawn or carved circle will exhib-it imperections that make it dissimilar rom the circle which is theintelligible object o mathematical knowledge (AC).

But rather than see these deects as purely negative actors, ratherthan see dissimilarity as grounds or rejecting images altogether, Platosuggests that they have a positive unction, in so ar as the image’s non-resemblance to its source is precisely the manner in which it reflects real


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Introduction

presences. In this context, it will be helpul to recall the distinctionbetween the “icon” and the “idol” that was mentioned above. Anyallegedly “perect” image can in act be only an idol, which will not

bring us closer to the truth, but rather drag us down more deeply intothe cave o illusions. o claim to utter the perect analogy, to behold theabsolute image, and so to have direct knowledge o the ideal, is to commitan act o idolatry, that is, to mistake the image or what it represents.

Tus imperect, contradictory images have a privileged role to playin the transormation o vision and knowledge. Stressing their ormaldifferences rom the object, Dionysios calls them “dissimilar images,”but most o the Fathers, ocusing on the way these same images are ex-

perienced by the reader/beholder, call them simply “stumbling blocks.”And this brings us very close to Socrates’ own terminology, or he callsthem “provocatives,” that is, paradoxical imag es that disturb the mindand provoke reflection ( Republic C). Having com pleted his narra-tion and exegesis o the “Allegory o the Cave,” Socrates considers the

ways in which different orms o sense experience either encourage orinhibit thought. “Some o the things reported by our perception do not provoke thought or reconsideration, since the judgment o them bysensation seems adequate.” Te experience afforded by other kinds oimages, however, “always invites the intellect to reflection, because sen-sation yields nothing that can be trusted.” When pressed to clariy,Socrates turns immediately to the positive role played by paradox andcontradiction in the deepening o perception, and explains that “expe-riences which ail to provoke thought are those that do not present themind with a simultaneous, contradictory perception. Tose, how ever,that have this effect I call ‘provocatives,’ in which perception beholdsboth one thing and its contrary” (BE). Examples are given o “con-used perceptions” in which “two contrary qualities” (e.g., big andsmall, light and heavy) are seen “to coexist in the same thing,” not asrelations between things, but more like inherent qualities, since thesingle object partakes o two distinct and unmixed orms (A-B).o learn to think about these orms, and to ask what they are, consti-tutes what Socrates calls the “art o conversion,” which is the “art o

producing vision within the soul” (D). In terms o our larger project, we can say that the art o seeing likewise requires the perception o paradox, an ex perience which deepens into the understanding that lacko visual resemblance has the power to virtualize within itsel resem-blance to the invisible God.


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Although it would be difficult to exaggerate the influence o Platoon the theology o the Greek Fathers, this is exactly what many modernscholars have managed to do. Tis should not, however, be considered

energy well spent. o argue that the Fathers o the Church were “Pla-tonists” because they made use o the Platonic tradition is rather likearguing that they were “Jews” because they cited passages rom the Oldestament. It is also mistaken to suggest that the Fathers borrowedrom Plato because they were incapable o thinking or themselves, orsimply because Platonism was culturally ashionable. On the contrary,they critically appropriated whatever was consistent with the aith othe Church and ig nored (or, when necessary, deconstructed) the rest.

And in this they could have invoked the authority o Socrates himsel, who urged his riends to “think very little o Socrates, and much moreo the truth. I you think that anything I say is true, you must agree withme; i not, oppose it with every argument that you have” ( Phaedo C).And this is exactly what they did. Here it will always be unwise to un-derestimate the extent to which the classical tradition was transormedby Christianity. o say that Hellenism was “baptized” means that it was

put to death—ritually sacrificed, i you will—and resurrected in a new

orm. Te radical revision o the classical aesthetic canon was part o amuch more comprehensive picture, o which the icon is an evocativesymbol. o reverse St. Irenaeos’ artistic metaphor, we could say thatChristianity dismantled the mosaic o the classical world and reramedit in the light o Christ. Placed within the new context, philosophical“commonplaces” receive new, uncommon meanings, and thus it is notsufficient simply to collapse them into their historical origins, but tounderstand the new uses to which they have been put.

D F

Whatever shortcomings may be imputed to the Platonic tradition,the Christian experience o spiritual “ascent” is not simply a movement“upward,” but equally a movement inward. It is not simply a transcend-ing o the orm, but a deepening into it. Creation is transfigured, notabandoned; it never ceases to und and rame vision. Tough some othe language belongs to the genius o Plato, the orm o the icon is morethan a Platonic point o departure to be discarded in a gnostic ascenttoward a transcendent, non-material reality. In consenting to share hu-


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man lie, to assume a human orm, the infinite and invisible God com-mitted himsel to the body in a way that is beyond return. In plunginghimsel into the dense particularity o our conditioned and limited

world, the Word o God showed us the way, revealed to us that the patho exaltation and ascent does not and cannot precede “sel-emptyinginto orm” (c. Phil :). Exaltation is consequent upon our embrace,acceptance, and entering into all the limitations o the finite. With ev-ery descent, with every plunge into the real contours o being, there isa corresponding surge up into insight and awareness, in such a way thatthe movement down generates the way up.

C.S. Lewis invites us to think o God as a diver, who descends to

re-ascend. “He comes down rom the heights o absolute being intotime and space, down into humanity, into the womb; down to the veryroots and seabed o the nature he has created. But he goes down tocome up again and bring the whole ruined world up with him. Onemay think o a diver, first reducing himsel to nakedness, then glancingin mid-air, then gone with a splash, vanished, rushing down throughgreen and warm water into black and cold water, down through in-creasing pressure into the death-like region o ooze and slime and old

decay; then up again, back to color and light, his lungs almost bursting,till suddenly he breaks surace again, holding in his hand the dripping,

precious thing that he went down to recover. He and it are both colorednow that they have come up into the light: down below, where it laycolorless in the dark, he lost his color too” ( Miracles, chap. ).

When the Word became flesh (John :), the verbal and the vi-sual were granted inexhaustible significance, restored to their primaldignity as transparent bearers o the Spirit, and it is only by recovering

the true iconicity o creation that we can hope to find healing or ourdamaged sensibility. It thereore seems churlish to protest that the im-age is somehow “less authentic” than the archetype, or that the suraceacquires meaning only through depth, or it is these very “limitations”that enable creation to share in the lie o God. Te perceived “weak-ness” o the icon is precisely its “strength,” its sel-effacement the muchneeded corrective and cure (c. Cor :). In any case, the power oimages in our society goes without saying: some people see more than advertisements a day. Many o these advertisements, projected bythe ashion industry, ocus exclusively on the superficial appearance othe body and undeniably constitute a new orm o idolatry. Michelle


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Lelwica has argued persuasively that these images provide young people, and especially young women, with alse visions o a kind o “saint-hood” that resonate religiously, so that “in their ethereality, the slender

lines o the model’s body symbolize the possibility o something more,something better, something beyond lie as it is” (Lelwica , ).O course such a “beyond” exists only in a magazine, and the

“somethingmore” is nothing more than the ever-increasing profit mar-gins o unrestrained capitalism. Unlike icons, the allegedly sophisti-cated images o the mass media know nothing—and wish to knownothing—o holding the spiritual and the material in a unity, to glo-riy them both, but only to disjoin and ultimately violate and destroy

both. We thirst or the absolute, but seem no longer to have the pa-tience to wait or it, or the power to perceive its arrival, or even to knowrom what direction it will come, and so in desperation we have becomethe slaves o idols. Te icon and all that it represents is surely one o themost important and proound theological statements amidst the mi-rages o our media and image-saturated society. Who will ree us romthe cave o our illusions, i not the child who was born in a cave? Who

will tear our vision away rom the powerul grasp o the idols, i not the

bruised, deenseless man who “had no beauty” (Is :) and who orthat reason is the “Icon o the Invisible God” (Col :)?

Like the Psalmist’s thirst or God (Ps :), and the bride’s longingor her bridegroom in the Song o Songs, the most intense spiritual in-

wardness is characteristically expressed in the most concretely somaticterms. Tus the desire or the spiritual transormation o matter to

which icons give witness is not a drifing away rom matter but a deep-ening into it. And this is due in no small measure to the act that the

medium is art, and that the pictorial content o every icon is the humanbody. Whereas the Gospel o Luke can say that “the angel Gabriel wassent rom God and came to the virgin whose name was Mary” (Lk:), iconographers have to depict the scene much more concretely,locating the figures in actual physical relation to one another, whichrequires countless decisions (o design, scale, proportion, perspective,oreshortening, use o color, etc.) all o which concern the organizationo orms in physical space. Te making o icons is thus an importantcounterweight to the idealism inherent in any orm o allegory andanagogy, religious or otherwise, because it never relinquishes the mate-rial visualization that no artist can do without.


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Intellectual analysis and sensuous attachment by themselves resultequally in isolation and ragmentation—“or demonic thought is anincomplete image o the human body constituted in the intellect”

(Evagrios, oughts ; SC :)—in contrast to which the worko art remains a concrete, unified, spiritual vision o the experience olie. I both the puritan and the libertine tend to separate the intellec-tual rom the emotional, it would be hard to deny that designing, paint-ing, and contemplating an image are activities that require and expressboth at once. We cannot say that art it is either a reflective or an active

process, that it is either mental or bodily; no distinction between themind and the hand is relevant to it. Art is based on sense experience,

yet it has the possibility to enact a spiritual transormation o that experience, in which ob jects o perception have been transfigured andthus belong neither to this world or the next, but to both at once.

N R C

Tough Orthodox icons are no longer viewed with quite the samedegree o incomprehension that was the case even a ew decades ago,

most o us are nonetheless heirs o the aesthetic values o the Greeks. We preer clarity over obscurity, simplicity over complication, and harmonyover dissonance. Paradox and contradiction seem like negative values,they make us uncomortable. But this is precisely the point: only thingsthat contradict the mind are real, there is no contradiction in what isimaginary. Te exertion o human rationality to vitiate paradox, to sup-

press contradiction, is ultimately an exercise in sel-delusion. It is theailure o true attention, the reusal to experience a change o mind. In

the classical aesthetic tradition, harmony in music and symmetry in the visual arts were considered the primary characteristics o the beautiul.But this view did not go unchallenged, and later thinkers maintainedthat these qualities were attractive chiefly to souls mired in sensuality,

who are disturbed by and so avoid dissonance and contradiction.Freedom rom the tyranny o the senses, however, does not mean

that our aim is a kind o detached, distanced looking, or this would beto commit the error o Zacchaeus, who wanted to see Jesus without be-ing seen by him (Lk :-). Yet it is mostly rom such sae distancesthat we too wish to see him, without opening ourselves up to his gaze,

without making ourselves vulnerable to him. Seeing, o course, is a


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metaphor or knowing, and there is no knowledge apart rom love.Tus the desire to see without being seen, to know without being known,to take without giving, stands in the same relation as love does to an act

o violence. God, however, cannot be so violated, and those who willnot strip and empty themselves beore him go away cold and empty.But i we heed the call to “make haste and come down” (Lk :), weshall find that, on the ground, in the embrace o Jesus (Lk :), the

world looks very different. It is no longer simply I who see, but also I who am seen. Te “object” o my vision has now become a subject, itapproaches me rom outside mysel, and draws out its implications inme. Welcomed into the presence o another, I discover that he himsel

is the living center o my being, and I become, in the words o St. Max-imos, “like a crystal clear mirror capturing completely the whole shapeo God the Word who is looking at himsel in me” (PG :B).“Since we have such a hope, we are very bold; and all o us, with un-

veiled aces, beholding the glory o the Lord, are transfigured into hislikeness rom one degree o glory to another” ( Cor :, ).

Te ransfiguration (Mt :-; Mk :-; Lk :-) reveals thetrue pur pose and meaning o the incarnation: the union o the uncre-

ated God and creation in the person o Jesus Christ, the dwelling o thelight in the mirror o the flesh, a oretaste o the second coming, a pro-totype o the resurrection; a revelation o the true nature o humanity,the union o human clay with immaterial fire, the reclothing o Adamin the garments o grace, the union o the spiritual and the material, thereturn rom exile o the severed halves o the world, and a model orspiritual ascent as the transfiguration o the senses grounded in the his-torical, material body o Christ.

Te disciples on the mountain underwent a change o perception,a shif in perspective that enabled them to see the divine light at theheart o all creation. Why, then, are they depicted in the icon o theransfiguration as plummeting in conusion rom the heights o glory?How are we to explain the cause o their dramatic all? Tere are ocourse a number o answers. From one point o view, it could be takenas an honest depiction o the pain, terror, and conusion that accom-

pany all radical change. Te message o the ransfiguration—that cre-ation is an icon, a theophany, a glorious maniestation o God—can beover whelming in the responsibility it places on us, or it means that thesweatshops o Asia, the slums o America, and the killing grounds o


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Introduction

the Middle East and Arica are also permeated by the uncreated light.o grasp such a truth and hold it within our vision even momentarilyis perhaps more than most o us can bear. And i we could, what must

we do to honor such a vision? What does it mean to be “an eyewitnesso his majesty” ( Pet :-)? It means, among other things, to experi-ence onesel undamentally altered rom the person one thought one

was, to see or the first time the image o one’s true ace. o see that the world too is now a di erent place, illumined by the sun o righteous-ness, which shines even on its enemies (c. Mal :; Mt :), and soto move and be moved, to be changed, to be filled with an awareness otremendous and sometimes terriying responsibility to that world.

Does this not explain the response we see in the disciples, their recog-nition that the uncreated light is everywhere, that the ace o Christ isin all aces? And to see the light o Christ in all creation also means tosee the su ering o all creation embodied in the crucifixion, to perceivethe paradox that abor and Golgotha are the same mountain. Withsuch a vision beore their eyes, with such a stone beneath their eet, truedisciples all radiantly rom the comort o the heights.

We have scratched the surace. In conronting the senses with pow-

erul and o ten disturbing contradictions, the sacred art o the Ortho-dox Church calls us to abandon old ways o seeing, offering us the con-ditions or the discovery o new states o attention, a new mode o ex-istence, or only those who lose their lie shall find it, restored to thema hundredold.

Many o the ideas in this book were first presented to, and elabo-

rated in dialogue with, students in my courses at Harvard DivinitySchool. I owe them a tremendous debt or their extraordinary level ointerest in the subject matter, and or enabling me to see with new eyes

what I had been looking at—and inevitably overlooking—or many years. o them my thanks and appreciation are unbounded.

Chapter is an expanded version o a lecture given at Harvard Uni- versity’s Center or the Study o World Religions ( April, ). I amgrateul to the Center’s then director, Proessor Lawrence Sullivan (cur-rently at the University o Notre Dame), and his staff or their hospitality.

Te main argument o chapter was originally presented as a lec-ture given at Yale University ( February, ). Proessor George


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The Art Of Seeing

Parsenios (currently at Princeton Teological Seminary) was instru-mental in organizing what was an enjoyable and memorable evening.Other portions o this chapter make some use o material rom my

book, Proclus of Constantinople and the Cult of theVir

gin in Late An-tiquity (Leiden, ). I am additionally thankul to my ormer stu-dent, Rachel Smith, or allowing me to cite rom her unpublished pa-

per, “My Son and My God: Te Kenosis o Grie in the Lamentationof the Virgin in the Church o the Virgin Peribleptos” (seminar paper,Harvard Divinity School, May ).

Chapter is a revised and expanded version o “A Spiritual Warriorin Iron Armor Clad: Byzantine Epigrams on St. George the Great Mar-

tyr,” in Only the Light Remains: Papers in Honor of George C. Pilitsis, ed. John Papson (Brook line, ), -. Proessor Pilitsis was a be-loved colleague o mine at Hellenic College and Holy Cross GreekOrthodox School o Teology, where I taught rom –. His

protracted struggles were a true martyrdom, and it seemed most appropriate to honor him through the figure o his patron saint. May hismemory be eternal!

Chapter is a revised version o “St. Symeon o Tessaloniki and

the Teology o the Icon Screen,” a paper read at the Dumbarton Oaks Spring Symposium, and later published in a volume edited byProessor Sharon Gerstel, resholds of the Sacred: Architectural, Art

Historical, Liturgical, and eological Perspectives on Re ligious Screens, East and West (Washington, D.C., ), -. Very ew o the orig-inal paragraphs remain unchanged. Consistent with the change o title,a number o passages have been significantly altered, especially in thetwo final sections. Most o the ootnotes have been pruned, and some

deleted altogether, although in a ew cases new ones have taken their place, or new material added to the ones that remained.

Many people were instrumental in helping me bring this book tocompletion. Some read chapters or parts o chapters and offered con-structive criticisms, others assisted with the iconographic material andrelated technical matters. o all o them I am grateul or the gifs otheir time, expertise, and exemplary spirit o collegiality. I am especial-ly thankul to Fr. Calinic Berger, Peter Collet, Luke Constas, Fr. Doug-las Dales, Veronica Della Dora, Jonah Friedman, Sharon Gerstel, PerryHamalis, Bruce Herman, Fr. Justin (Mt. Sinai), Katherine Wendy Lar-son, Sister Danielia Ormyliotissa, Yuri Piatnitsky, Haralambos Pennas,

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