parresia

On Icons

On Icons

A quotation of V.V. Weidle's book The Baptism of Art.

The icon is also a fruit of this renewal of art and its appearance is inextricably connected with the unveiling in the Church's consciousness of the meaning of the Incarnation: the fullness of the Godhead that dwells corporeally in Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the Man Christ reveals Him in full. An image of the Man Jesus is therefore an image of God, for Christ is the God-Man. If the material universe and its matter can be sanctified by grace of the Holy Spirit, and in feeding our bodies also feed the "whole man" in God's conception of him as an incarnate spirit; if the water of baptism grants us forgiveness of sins; if the bread and wine of the Eucharist make present to us the Body and Blood of Christ, then a portrayal of Christ, the product of human art, may also be filled with the grace of His presence and power-- may become not only an image but also a spiritual reallity. In the icon there is at once a further revelation of the profundity of the dogma of Chalcedon and the gift of a new dimension in human art, because Christ has given a new dimension to man himself.