Painting Saint Francis: A Contemplative Reflection
Dear Friends,
As I begin work on an icon of Saint Francis and the Wolf of Gubbio for my upcoming class at Holy Cross Monastery, I find myself reflecting less on the historical details of Francis’s life and more on the spiritual movement within it—the slow transformation of a human heart toward God.
Prayer Attributed to Saint Francis, Image of Saint Francis by Cimabue
Icons often teach us long before they are finished. While preparing the board, laying the ground, and beginning the first lines of the drawing, I realize that Saint Francis’s life itself unfolds like an icon written in stages.
Francis did not begin as a saint. He began as many of us do—comfortable, admired, and confident in worldly success. Yet illness, disappointment, and prayer opened a space within him where God could speak. His conversion was not sudden perfection but a gradual awakening.
St. Francis Icon Hales
Again and again, Francis encountered Christ in unexpected places: in solitude, in poverty, in the suffering face of the leper, and finally before the crucifix at San Damiano. When he heard the words, “Repair my house,” he responded with simplicity. He did not yet understand their full meaning; he simply acted in faith.
This is deeply iconographic.
When we begin an icon, we do not see the finished image clearly. We proceed step by step—layer upon layer—trusting that illumination will come through obedience to the process. Francis lived in this same spirit of obedience. By renouncing wealth and security, he allowed his life to become transparent to divine light.
Francis teaches us that holiness is not escape from the world but reconciliation with it. Seeing all creation as brother and sister, he recognized the presence of God shining through every living thing. Peace with nature flowed from peace with God.
St. Francis and the Wolf by Christine Hales
The story of the Wolf of Gubbio expresses this beautifully. Francis did not conquer the wolf; he restored relationship. Violence ceased when fear gave way to compassion. The icon reminds us that peace begins in the conversion of the human heart.
As iconographers—and as Christians—we are invited into the same work. We repair the house of God first within ourselves. Through prayer, humility, and attention, the hard surfaces of the heart are gradually burnished until they reflect Christ’s light.
While painting Saint Francis, I am reminded that the icon is not only an image of a saint. It is also a question addressed to each of us:
St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, by Giotto
Where is God asking me to bring peace? What must I release in order to follow Christ more freely? How might my own life become a window into divine love?
May Saint Francis intercede for us, teaching us to walk gently, to live simply, and to recognize all creation as a sacred gift.
When I finally have time to pray and reflect on the direction my iconography is leading me, I often discover that artistic questions are also spiritual questions. Recently, my thoughts have returned again and again to Giotto, the great Italian painter of the late 13th and early 14th centuries.
If I listen carefully to that still, small voice guiding my work, I sense an invitation to understand Giotto more deeply — not only visually, but spiritually. His art seems to stand at a threshold: faithful to the sacred language of icons while opening new ways for humanity and incarnation to be seen in Christian art.
I share these reflections in the hope that they may inspire you — whether through Giotto himself or through whatever artistic path God is unfolding within your own practice.
Cimabue Madonna
The Artistic World Giotto Inherited
Giotto did not emerge in isolation. The world into which he was born brought together four powerful artistic traditions:
Byzantine Art arrived from the Christian East. Its forms were austere, hierarchical, and spiritually focused. Figures appeared frontal, solemn, and often flattened against gold backgrounds, emphasizing transcendence over earthly realism. The icon was never merely decorative — it was theological vision made visible.
Romanesque Art blended classical Roman inheritance with native European expression. Geometry, symbolic animals, and decorative motifs dominated, reinforcing sacred order rather than individual psychology.
Gothic Art began introducing greater emotional expression and observation of the natural world. Figures gained movement, narrative clarity, and human presence.
Classical Influence quietly persisted beneath all these styles, preserving an awareness of volume, structure, and bodily presence inherited from antiquity.
Giotto stood precisely at the convergence of these traditions.
St. Francis Altar Piece, Bonaventura Berlinghieri 1235
From Icons to Narrative Devotion
By the late 12th century, Italian religious art was already evolving. Devotional imagery moved through a clear progression:
monumental crucifixes,
Marian icons,
and eventually painted panels narrating the lives of saints.
These panels, commissioned for churches, chapels, and altars, often included narrative side scenes recounting a saint’s life in vivid detail. They functioned much like extended icons — inviting contemplation through story as well as presence.
Here we begin to see the seeds of Giotto’s transformation.
Duccio, 1308 “Entry Into Jerusalem “
Giotto’s Breakthrough
“Crucifixion” Giotto 1308
Early masters such as Pietro Cavallini were already experimenting with greater naturalism when Giotto arrived in Rome. Yet Giotto accomplished something profoundly new.
He carried forward the theological seriousness of Byzantine iconography while reintroducing human weight, emotion, and spatial reality.
His greatest works moved beyond panel icons into large narrative fresco cycles. Figures became monumental and grounded. Saints occupied believable space. Gestures conveyed relationship and interior life.
Giotto did not abandon the sacred purpose of images — he deepened it.
Where the icon proclaims eternity breaking into time, Giotto allowed viewers to experience salvation history unfolding within human experience itself.
Madonna and Child Bernardo Daddi 1330
The Circle Around Giotto
Giotto’s influence quickly shaped the next generation.
Bernardo Daddi, a younger contemporary, absorbed Giotto’s solidity of form while retaining the refined decorative elegance associated with the Siennese school.
Meanwhile, Duccio of Siena brought Byzantine inheritance into a lyrical and expressive direction. His rhythmic lines and luminous colors communicate joy and hope within sacred narratives. Though deeply indebted to icon tradition, Duccio expanded emotional storytelling within devotional painting.
Ognissanti Madonna, Giotto 1306
Together, these artists demonstrate that tradition is never static. The iconographic vision was not abandoned; it was translated for new spiritual needs.
Technique, Craft, and the Artist’s Life
The technical continuity of this period is preserved in the remarkable treatise by Cennino Cennini, The Craftsman’s Handbook. Written in the early 15th century and deeply influenced by Giotto’s legacy, the text reveals the working life of medieval painters.
Cennini describes everything from preparing pigments and panels to fresco technique and gilding. What emerges is not merely instruction but a worldview: the artist as disciplined craftsman serving sacred purpose.
For iconographers today, this continuity is striking. Many of us still grind pigments, prepare panels, and apply gold in ways recognizable to these early masters. The physical practice itself becomes prayer.
Giotto and the Iconographer Today
“Kiss of Judas” Giotto 1308
Why does Giotto matter to iconographers?
Because he reminds us that fidelity to tradition does not mean immobility.
Icons reveal the transfigured world — humanity illuminated by divine light. Giotto’s achievement was to show that the Incarnation also sanctifies human emotion, gesture, and lived experience.
He stands not as a rejection of iconography but as one of its great interpreters.
For those of us writing icons today, his work asks an important question:
How do we remain faithful to the theological vision of the icon while speaking meaningfully to the spiritual eyes of our own time?
A Personal Reflection
As I continue my own journey in iconography, I find myself increasingly grateful for artists like Giotto who listened deeply to both tradition and inspiration. Their courage encourages us to remain attentive to where the Holy Spirit may be guiding our work.
Perhaps your inspiration will not come from Giotto. Perhaps it will arise from a saint, a text, a teacher, or a quiet discovery in your studio.
But when that inspiration arrives, it is worth following.
Sacred art has always grown this way — through prayer, attention, and faithful response.
And in that sense, the icon tradition is not behind us.
It is still unfolding.
Blessings and prayers,
Christine Hales
Sources: “The World of Giotto”, C. 1267-1337, Time-Life Books, Sarel Eimerl
My Internet links: LINKS For Christine Simoneau Hales 2026
Reflections on Constantine Cavarnos’ Guide to Byzantine Iconography
This month I would like to share several reflections drawn from Constantine Cavarnos’ important work, Guide to Byzantine Iconography. For those of us laboring in our studios today, the questions he raises remain foundational:
How do we create new icons for contemporary Christians while faithfully preserving the original intentions of the earliest sacred images?
The Formation of Hieratic Types
In the early centuries of Christian art, the Church Fathers recognized the necessity of establishing hieratic types—sacred prototypes that would serve as authoritative visual theology. These were not merely artistic conventions. They formed a coherent, didactic, allegorical system intended to guide both iconographers and the faithful.
John the Baptist Icon by Christine Hales
Cavarnos writes:
“The purpose of depicting these consecrated types was to contribute to the edification of the faithful… Through them, the Church recommends to the faithful a hidden, spiritual teaching.”
The earliest biblical scenes—many preserved in the frescoes of the Roman catacombs (2nd–4th centuries)—already demonstrate this theological intentionality. The selection of subjects was not arbitrary. It was shaped by the symbolism of the Gospels and Apostolic writings, and guided by the Spirit within the life of the Church.
The Long Refinement of the Archetypes
St. John, the hut dweller and Paul of Thebes, Greek-Cretan Icon 15-17th centuries
Photios Kontoglou expresses this development with particular clarity:
“The archetypes of Byzantine Iconography are the result of centuries of spiritual life, Christian experience, genius, and work. The iconographers who developed them regarded their work as awesome, like the dogmas of the true Faith, and they worked with humility and piety, on types that had been handed down to them by earlier iconographers, avoiding all inopportune and inappropriate changes. Through long elaboration, these various representations were freed from everything superfluous and inconstant, and attained the greatest and most perfect expression and power.”
This passage is worth lingering over. The archetypes were not invented in a moment of individual inspiration. They were purified over centuries—stripped of the accidental, the sentimental, and the merely fashionable—until they achieved distilled spiritual clarity.
What remains is not stylistic rigidity, but theological precision.
Why We Copy Pre-Renaissance Icons
St. Luke painting an icon of the Virgin and Child
Most of us were trained with the guidance: copy icons from before the Renaissance. Cavarnos and Kontoglou help us understand why.
From the Renaissance onward, Western art increasingly emphasized naturalism, individual expression, and worldly concerns—even within Christian subject matter. The center of gravity shifted toward human emotion and physical realism.
By contrast, the Byzantine tradition preserved the ancient archetypes. Because it maintained continuity with the established types, it retained its spiritual luminosity and theological integrity. The icon remained what it was intended to be: not a window into psychological narrative, but a window into eternity.
To copy pre-Renaissance icons, then, is not antiquarianism. It is fidelity to a theological vision refined by centuries of ecclesial experience.
Christ Redeemer Icon, written by Christine Hales
Our Responsibility in the Studio
For those of us creating icons today, the task is both humble and demanding:
To revive the archetypes with reverence.
To avoid unnecessary innovation.
To allow the forms to shape us rather than imposing ourselves upon them.
To participate in a tradition that is larger than our individual artistic impulse.
If the early iconographers regarded their work as “awesome, like the dogmas of the true Faith,” then so must we.
May these reflections strengthen and give wings to your holy practice. May our work, grounded in the consecrated types, continue to edify the faithful and communicate the hidden, spiritual teaching entrusted to the Church.
Until next month, Christine Hales Artist / Iconographer
From Dorothy Alexander, Santa Barbra CA, An Orthodox Liturgical Arts Retreat is being offered at Echo Park, CA (7.26 – 8/1/26). 1) Mosaic and Repoussé/Sgraffito and 2) Egg Tempera Iconography. Micah Andrews is a mosaic master and we are also blessed to have Dr. Victoria Brennan presenting and teaching. Contact Dorothy Alexander by email or text for more information, dotalexander@westmont.edu, or (805) 708-0453.
I am spending more time re-reading some of my icon related books and want to share with you this months some of the insights I found in : “The Avant-Garde Icon, Russian Avant Gard Art & The Icon Painting Tradition” by Andrew Spira. I really like the clarity of thought here about what is important to carry forward in our contemporary icons. I hope you enjoy it!
At the heart of the icon lies a radical claim: the presence of an Absolute in the world. This is the underlying principle that distinguishes the icon from all other forms of religious art. The definitive characteristic of the icon is not stylistic consistency or historical fidelity, but its metaphysical identity. An icon does not simply depict holiness—it participates in it.
For iconographers today, this distinction is crucial. The challenge is not merely to preserve a tradition, but to remain in living relationship with it. The struggle to create an art form capable of communicating the mystery of the incarnate God has shaped icon painting from its earliest beginnings. Because God became flesh, matter itself became capable of bearing divine presence. Icon painting is therefore an innately sacred art, one that originates in—and continues through—the reality of the Incarnation.
Icons as Encounter with God
A sixth-century tradition tells us that the first icon was of the Madonna and Child, painted from life by the Apostle Luke. Whether taken literally or symbolically, this story reveals something essential about the nature of iconography: icons arise from encounter, not abstraction. They are born from witness, prayer, and lived experience rather than from theory alone.
Vladimir Virgin Icon
Icons are replete with symbolic meaning, but their power lies in more than symbolism. Their narrative and didactic conventions—long associated with the transmission of Truth—operate on both conscious and subliminal levels. For the iconographer, fidelity to these conventions is not a matter of imitation for its own sake, but an act of participation in a sacramental language. Adherence to both the symbolic and sacramental significance of the icon is essential to its true identity.
The iconographic tradition reached one of its highest expressions in the work of the Russian monk Andrei Rublev (c. 1370–1430). His Old Testament Trinity became a defining image of Orthodox theology precisely because it does not explain the Trinity—it reveals it. Drawing on Genesis 18, Rublev’s use of three angels to represent the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit allows the viewer to encounter the unity of the Godhead through contemplation rather than analysis. The icon silently discloses divine mystery to the inner eye and the receptive heart.
Rublev Trinity Icon
Yet even living traditions can lose their interior vitality. In sixteenth-century Russia, efforts to preserve iconography led to the Hundred Chapters Council (Stoglav) of 1551. Iconographic manuals were introduced to formalize and regulate canonical forms. While this development was consistent with long-standing practices of copying prototypes, it also signaled a deeper shift. The contemplative spirit that had sustained the tradition from within no longer prevailed with the same force.
Dangers of Losing the Contemplative Spirit
A subtle transformation followed. Icon painters continued to reproduce established models, but increasingly focused on external form rather than inward engagement. Copying, once a sacramental act rooted in prayer and insight, risked becoming an exercise in technical replication. The icon was still produced correctly, yet no longer always created from within the living current of the tradition.
This historical moment speaks directly to contemporary iconographers. In our own time, the desire to create an art that is both accessible and faithful often leads us back to Byzantine models. But the question remains: are we copying in order to conform, or copying in order to participate?
Myself working on the Confession of Saint Peter Icon
Exploring the potential of icons within the modern world requires more than technical mastery or historical accuracy. It calls for a renewed commitment to the transcendental nature of the icon itself. For the iconographer today, tradition is not a fixed archive but a living inheritance—one that demands not only discipline of hand, but attention of heart.
A Closing Reflection for the Contemporary Iconographer
For those of us working within the iconographic tradition today, the essential question is not whether we are faithful to the models we inherit, but how we are faithful to them. Technique, historical knowledge, and canonical accuracy matter deeply—but they are not sufficient on their own. Without interior attentiveness, they risk becoming ends rather than means.
St.Gregory of Palamas
Importance of Prayer and Humility
The tradition reminds us that copying was never intended to be a mechanical act. It was, and remains, a sacramental discipline: a way of submitting the self to a form that reveals more than it contains. When approached with prayer, humility, and discernment, the act of copying becomes a participation in the same contemplative vision that gave rise to the prototype in the first place.
In a contemporary context—where icons are often encountered as cultural artifacts, aesthetic objects, or commodities—the iconographer is quietly entrusted with a different responsibility. Our task is not to innovate for novelty’s sake, nor to preserve forms as relics of the past, but to allow the icon to remain what it has always been: a place of encounter between the visible and the invisible.
My Baptism of Jesus Icon at the Cathedral of Saint Peter, Saint Petersburg
The enduring challenge, then, is this: to work with discipline without rigidity, tradition without nostalgia, and creativity without self-assertion. When the iconographer remains attentive to the spiritual source of the tradition, the icon continues to speak—not as an echo of history, but as a living witness to the incarnate God in the present moment.
Please share your thoughts or ideas for future posts! Many thanks for following and you are all in my prayers, for God’s blessings to go before you as you work on His icons.
Detail, Trinity Icon. written by Christine Hales. after Andre Rublev
Christian art has never existed merely to decorate sacred spaces or to please the eye. At its best, it has served the Church as a theological language—one that gives visible form to invisible truths and nurtures worship practices that are both spiritually vital and theologically rooted. In The Substance of Things Seen, Robin M. Jensen articulates with clarity the indispensable role of art in Christian theology, worship, and communal life. Her insights are particularly relevant today as artists and iconographers seek to create contemporary icons that speak faithfully within modern contexts while remaining rooted in tradition.
Art as a Theological Practice
Christian art, and iconography in particular, occupies a unique place within the life of faith. Icons do not simply illustrate doctrine; they participate in it. They promote an ongoing conversation between faith and art—one in which visual form, prayer, and theology are inseparably linked. As Jensen reminds us, art within the Christian tradition is not neutral. It shapes belief, informs devotion, and forms the imagination of the worshiping community.
Yet this formative power carries responsibility. “If we remember that imitations are secondary things,” Jensen writes, “meant to guide us or inspire us toward the truth but not to substitute for it, we may avoid confusing objects with values or beautiful things with beauty itself.” The icon, then, is not an end in itself. It is a means—an invitation toward encounter rather than a replacement for the divine reality it signifies.
Icon Writing as Spiritual Formation
Within this framework, contemporary icon writing can be understood not simply as an artistic discipline but as a process of spiritual formation. Icon writing classes, when properly grounded, are aimed at producing visible images that point far beyond themselves. Creation and formation unfold together. The artist is shaped even as the image takes form.
My Icon Class at Nashota House Seminary
This understanding resonates deeply with the Christian conviction expressed in 2 Corinthians 3:18: “We see not the truth itself, but are being transformed as we behold.” The thing we see is not the truth itself, but a means of encounter with the truth. In icon writing, the slow, prayerful process—layer upon layer of pigment, prayer, and contemplation—mirrors the gradual transformation of the human heart.
Seeing, Meaning, and Community
Jensen also reminds us that the perceived meaning of any work of art depends upon the experience, social location, interests, needs, and predispositions of its audience. Icons are not viewed in a vacuum. They exist within communities, cultures, and lived realities. Contemporary iconography must therefore attend carefully to context—not by abandoning tradition, but by allowing tradition to speak into the present moment with discernment and humility.
My Saint James Icon being blessed by Bishop Carlos in Santiago Spain
The icon does not record a particular physical appearance so much as it gathers and focuses prayer. It helps the viewer sense the invisible presence of the one to whom prayer is addressed. In this sacred exchange, the viewer does not merely look at the image but is invited to look through it. The icon serves as a medium of prayer directed toward a reality beyond the painted surface.
Holy Places and Sacred Spaces
My Nativity Icon at Church of the Redeemer, Sarasota, FL
This sacramental understanding of images naturally extends to architecture and sacred space. A holy place is traditionally understood as a meeting point between heaven and earth—a site where the divine presence has manifested, a gateway between the visible and the invisible. In this sense, all architecture functions iconically, and religious architecture does so in a particularly concentrated way.
Like painted icons, sacred spaces manifest ideas in nonverbal form, functioning symbolically at both the most mundane and the most profound levels. Depending on how it is viewed and used, a religious space may mediate or even “contain” holy presence in much the same way as a traditional icon painted on a wooden panel.
Toward a Faithful Contemporary Practice
Creating contemporary icons, then, is not about innovation for its own sake. It is about faithfulness—faithfulness to theological truth, to liturgical life, and to the formative power of sacred art within Christian community. Drawing on the wisdom articulated by Jensen, contemporary iconographers are invited to see their work not merely as aesthetic production, but as participation in the Church’s ongoing act of seeing, praying, and becoming.
In this way, the substance of things seen becomes a pathway toward the mystery of things unseen—and the icon remains what it has always been at its best: a window into divine presence, held in humility, reverence, and prayer.
Two Books That Open the Heart Through Icons and the Saints
John the Baptist Icon. written by Christine Hales
In the world of Christian spirituality, a beautiful mystery unfolds whenever art and prayer meet. Two icon related books—The Dwelling of the Light: Praying With Icons of Christ by Dr. Rowan Williams, and The Song of Saints: Celebrating the Saints with Anglican Prayer Beads by Catherine Gotschall—offer readers rich opportunities to encounter that mystery with depth and devotion. Though very different in scope, each invites us to slow down, to look more deeply, and to let the Holy Spirit reshape how we see God, the world, and ourselves.
Seeing Christ Anew: Rowan Williams on Praying With Icons
When The Dwelling of the Light was first published in 2003, Dr. Rowan Williams had just begun his tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury. Already a respected theologian and scholar, Williams offered the world a slim but luminous volume on praying with icons of Christ. It remains one of his most beloved spiritual works.
Madonna and Child. Written by Christine Hales
At the heart of the book lies a profound reverence for icons—not as decorative artifacts, but as encounters with divine presence. Williams writes:
“In their presence you become aware that you are present to God and that God is working on you by his grace, as he does in the lives and words of holy people.”
Using four deeply significant icons—The Transfiguration, The Resurrection, The Hospitality of Abraham, and Christ Pantocrator—he guides the reader into a prayerful way of seeing. Icons, he suggests, are not depictions of a moment frozen in history; they reveal a life “radiating the light and force of God.”
Resurrection Icon. written by Christine Hales
In Williams’ hands, each icon becomes not only an image but a doorway: a way for Christ’s transfiguring presence to shape our own vision of the world. The book is small enough to read in an afternoon but expansive enough to ponder for years.
I have always appreciated Dr. Williams’ viewpoint on icons and sacramentals in the Anglican Church. Sometimes on my lunch break I like to pick up one of his books for some quick inspiration!
Williams wrote a companion volume a year earlier—Ponder These Things: Praying With Icons of the Virgin (Canterbury Press, 2002)—which offers a similar depth of prayer through icons of Mary.
Praying With the Cloud of Witnesses: Catherine Gotschall’s The Song of Saints
While Williams leads us to contemplate the face of Christ, Catherine Gotschall invites us to pray with the saints themselves. A lifelong Episcopalian, Gotschall has created an extraordinary resource in The Song of Saints: Celebrating the Saints with Anglican Prayer Beads.
I met Catherine at the Episcopal Convention of South West Florida several weeks ago and want to share this interesting book with you all since first class books on the lives of the saints are hard to come by!
Her book presents the lives of more than fifty saints from across the centuries—men and women whose faithful witness continues to echo through Christian history. Arranged within the six cycles of the liturgical year, the saints span the 1st to the 20th century and represent Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions.
Mary of Egypt Icon by Christine Hales
But what makes the book truly distinctive is its prayer practice. For each saint, Gotschall offers:
A brief biography
Prayers drawn from the saint’s own writings—letters, sermons, and vitae
A way of praying these words with Anglican prayer beads
She describes a saint as:
“someone who has led a sacramental life… an outward and visible sign of deep and abiding inner spiritual grace.”
St, Francis and the Wolf of Lubbio written by Christine Hales
This is more than a book of history or devotional snippets—it is a tool for moving devotion “from head to heart.” Through the rhythm of the beads and the wisdom of the saints, readers are invited into a lived experience of prayer that feels both ancient and deeply personal.
Together, these two books remind us of something essential: authentic Christian prayer is not an escape from the world but a way of seeing it more truthfully. Icons illuminate the radiant presence of Christ at the center of all things. The saints show us what life looks like when that presence is welcomed, trusted, and lived boldly across centuries and cultures.
Whether you are drawn to the serene gaze of Christ Pantocrator or to the stirring witness of those who followed him, these works offer gentle, profound companions for the spiritual journey.
They invite us—quietly but insistently—to ponder, to pray, and to be transformed.
Until next month, be blessed and be a blessing! And don’t forget, if you write an informative article about your icons or icon related information, please email me with your ideas and proposals. It would be wonderful to have articles written by more of you!
And the Enduring Influence of Byzantine Icon Training
Hello Fellow Iconographers:
As you probably already know, I love making connections between Byzantine iconography and modern art. I always think that icons were the contemporary art of their time, so how can we bring a contemporary approach to our icon writing? This article about the work of ElGreco shows how one iconographer of the 16th century made that transition. The approaches each iconographer takes to contemporary iconography will be as individual as the iconographers themselves, but some things will remain. Here is an account of how this issue played out in the life and work of ElGreco.
Veronica’s Veil, El Greco
Doménikos Theotokópoulos—better known as El Greco—has long fascinated scholars of Early Modern art. While his mature works in Toledo are celebrated for their dramatic elongations, expressive color, and visionary intensity, less often explored in depth is the formative influence of his early training in the Byzantine icon tradition. This article examines how the discipline of icon-painting, rooted in the post-Byzantine Cretan School, left an enduring imprint on El Greco’s aesthetic, technique, and theological vision. His icon training, I argue, was not a youthful chapter to be overcome, but a structural foundation that underlay his later innovations.
Saint Paul by El Greco
From Crete to Venice
Although he was born in Crete in 1541, after receiving icon painting training in his early life, Domenikos left Crete in 1567 for Venice. Some key characteristics Domenikos learned from the icon painters were:
A hieratic vocabulary of elongated, stylized figures and flattened pictorial space intended for devotion.
The use of traditional materials and techniques—tempera, wooden panels, and gilding.
An emphasis on spiritual vision over empirical realism.
But in Venice he was encountering the artistic milieu of the Italian Renaissance and Mannerism, absorbing the vibrant color, dynamic composition and spatial experimentation of artists such as Tintoretto and Titian. This Western training did not supplant his icon-foundation but merged with it. One of his trademark features—elongated, upward-reaching figures, almost defying gravity—can be traced back to the hieratic verticality of icons, in which figures are often elevated beyond the earthly realm. In his mature altarpieces in Toledo, this physical stretching expresses a spiritual tension: the human yearning toward the Divine.
Annunciation by El Greco
Rome, Toledo, and the Transformation of a Style
From Venice, El Greco moved to Rome (1570–1576), where he sought patronage but struggled to achieve success amid the competitive papal art world. In 1576, he relocated to Spain, where his career flourished under the patronage of the Church and the Spanish nobility. His first major commission came from the dean of Toledo Cathedral: three altarpieces for the Church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo, works that already reveal a synthesis of iconographic form, Mannerist stylization, and Venetian color.
Even as his technique evolved, the influence of icon-painting persisted. The vertical elongation of figures—one of El Greco’s most recognizable traits—can be traced to the hieratic verticality of Byzantine icons, where figures are elevated beyond the earthly realm. In El Greco’s mature altarpieces, this elongation expresses a spiritual tension, a reaching upward toward the Divine.
Annunciation El Greco
Similarly, his treatment of space often resists Renaissance perspectival illusion. Instead of a fully realistic spatial construction, El Greco employs stacked planes and compressed layers to evoke a metaphysical dimension. Scholars have linked this to his Byzantine roots, where sacred space functions symbolically rather than empirically.
Theological Continuities: Painting as a Spiritual Act
Beneath the stylistic parallels lies a deeper continuity: El Greco’s theological conception of painting. In the icon tradition, the painter’s task is to serve as a mediator of divine light, not merely an imitator of nature. This conception of sacred art as a spiritual discipline—requiring prayer, fasting, and inner illumination—found new expression in El Greco’s Spanish works.
His figures seem animated not by physical energy but by spiritual light, glowing from within. In this, El Greco remained faithful to the iconographer’s conviction that beauty reveals the presence of God.
Pentecost, El Greco
Reception and Legacy
“El Greco is one of the few old master painters who enjoys widespread popularity,” writes Keith Christiansen of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rediscovered in the nineteenth century by collectors, critics, and artists, El Greco was hailed as both the quintessential Spaniard and a proto-modern painter of the spirit.
For members of the Blue Rider school, including Franz Marc, El Greco embodied a mystical resistance to materialism—a painter who, as Christiansen writes, “felt the mystical inner construction of life.”
Conclusion: The Icon as Foundation of Innovation
El Greco’s artistic evolution cannot be fully understood without acknowledging the foundational role of his icon-training on Crete. Far from being a mere apprenticeship, this discipline remained the structural ground of his mature art—shaping his understanding of color, form, space, and the sacred.
His work ultimately represents a synthesis of:
The spiritual economy of the icon,
The painterly brilliance of Venice and Rome, and
The religious fervor of Counter-Reformation Spain.
For students of sacred art and iconographers today, El Greco offers a powerful model: discipline does not restrict creativity—it frames and empowers it. His art demonstrates that fidelity to tradition can be the very source of visionary originality.
My Baptism of Jesus Icon at the Cathedral of Saint Peter, Saint Petersburg
I hope you have enjoyed this article and that it is food for thought. The battle for art is not won or lost in an academic tradition, but in the spiritual realm where God is all powerful. God wants each of us to give glory to His name in each individual way that he has created us.
Here are some interesting links that are passed on from Dorothy Alexander, a friend and iconographer in California:
1.How Icons Are Made” is the fourth and final lecture by Aidan Hart presented at St. Julian’s Church in Shrewsbury, England. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of2eq-NiDVE&t=82s. He speaks on both the theology as well as the practical details of making an icon.
2.You can see the beauty of natural pigments as you watch how vivianite is made from the mineral. This also helps to understand why it is not cheap to buy. The example at the end shows the versatility of the color
As we move into fall, it’s always a good time to reflect on the summer time that is past and imagine what we hope to accomplish this winter season. I’ve been doing a lot of Icon writing teaching this past summer, which I have loved. But it does come at the expense of having creative time to create icons, so I am very happy to have some time ahead of me to create new icons and experiment with different colors and techniques. I hope to have some work to share with you by the end of the year!
One of the main ways I have of supporting students as they move from taking classes to working on their own is through Patreon. On this platform, for a nominal monthly fee, I offer a few different levels of membership that can help new iconographers to grow, ask questions, share concerns about their icon painting techniques and receive feedback. If you are interested, you can go to Patreon and look up Christine Hales Icons, or I will put a link for you at the end of this article.
All this to say, that one of my long time students has created an original and insightful icon, “The Temptation of Christ”, which I would like to share with you this month. Sue Valentine is a minister who wanted to have the icon speak to that moment of Christ’s temptation by the devil. Along the way, through many changes and transitions, the creating of the icon has provided a space for discussing and reflecting upon this moment in Christ’s ministry, and we worked together discerning how best to portray the meaning and message in iconographic form.
Sue has generously shared about her thoughts and process which I include here, along with some sequential images of the changes the icon went through until completion.
The Temptation of Christ Icon written by the Hand of Sue Valentine
“Jesus faced three temptations before He began His public ministry. The final temptation is the subject of this icon. The devil led Jesus to a high place, showed Him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world, and offered them to Jesus now, without having to suffer and die, if only Jesus would worship him.
This is a less familiar story to some, and because I wanted people to understand what they were seeing, the haiku at the bottom is an attempt to summarize the scripture for them:
“Kingdoms, if you bow.”
“Away from me, O Satan.”
“Worship God, alone.”
Matthew 4:8-10
People struggle with the idea of whether Jesus could be tempted. Sometimes the word is translated “test”. But whether He was tempted or tested, for this to be a true “test”, it had to have been possible for Jesus to fail it. What would have happened to us had He failed the test and worshipped Satan?
Kingdoms are tempting. Power is tempting. The ground surrounding the kingdoms depicted in the lower left are painted with gold to depict a counterfeit of heaven’s “streets of gold”, and subtle gold highlights in the windows imply there is something desirable yet hidden within. I decided not to make the kingdoms look more obviously attractive by applying gold to the outsides of the buildings. Kingdoms are, after all, seductive. But thankfully, Jesus wasn’t motivated by kingdoms. He was motivated by rescuing us.
More Progress Photos
The Homily, or Application of the Story
I felt His clarity of purpose as He responded to Satan, “Worship God, alone”, as He pointed His finger at the dragon. I find it interesting that there is no agitation on Jesus’ face. His eyes are closed. He is serene. But His conviction is clear.
Like most people, I would like to receive a reward from God without suffering, or without having to walk the whole road He has for me. I felt that as I wrote this icon. I struggled mightily with color choices, especially with the mountains and the inner background, and changed them many times asking the Holy Spirit to help me.
It’s tempting to want to design our own roads. It’s tempting to want an easy life. But that is not the way of a disciple. Worship of God includes acknowledging that He determines our path, including the subjects of our icons and the process we go through as we write them.”
Sue Valentine
I’m so grateful that Sue has shared this with all of us, and I hope that this can provide a model not only for discerning how to paint a particular icon, but also for allowing God to speak to us through the process of icon writing and convey that to the viewer.
With this, I put out a request to those of you with icons and their development to share with us all in next month’s newsletter. Just email me with your thoughts and photos: chales@halesart.com
I close this month’s newsletter with a prayer and quote from Psalm 106:
“For your lovingkindness is greater than the heavens, and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Exalt yourself above the heavens O God, and your glory over all the earth, so that those who are dear to you may be delivered, save with your right hand and answer me.”
May God grant you all peace and the ability to be peace makers, and bless the work of your hands,
This is the third in a four-part series of articles that examine the historical evolution of Christian icons that I have written for the Anglican Digest. This article appears in the fall issue. In this article we will explore the significance of a symbolic visual language of icons in contrast to a more realistic one that began to develop from the late Byzantine period through the beginnings of the Italian Renaissance paintings.
Saint Epifani, Mosaic, 1030
This stylistic change is very important. It helps to define the difference between holy icons and the religious painting that grew out of the Renaissance. This difference became ever more pronounced as time went on, and the shift from symbolic to realistic imagery and storytelling can be compared to the difference between a parable and a narrative story. The parable can have more eternal, universal and varied meanings, while realism points to a particular moment in time, a specific meaning. Eastern church traditions preserved the integrity and spiritual function of icons, while Western Europe began to explore art’s potential to engage both the senses and the intellect.
Church Art From the 11-15th Centuries
Duccio, 1230, Maesta
From the 11th to the 15th centuries, art saw significant development, transitioning from medieval styles to the Renaissance. The rise of Romanesque and Gothic art occurred in the Middle Ages, with Romanesque art taking shape in the eleventh century, initially developing in France then spreading to Spain, England, Flanders, Germany, Italy, and other regions.
Annunciation, St. Sophia’s Cathedral, Kiev. 1050
One of the most spectacular achievements of medieval artists which was their desire to pursue heavenly light in their creation of the worship space. The importance of this play of light had its beginnings in the 12th century when the heavy, dark Romanesque architecture began to be replaced by Gothic development of pointed arches, vaulted ceilings, and flying buttresses- all of which made it possible to admit more light into the sanctuary than would have been possible before.
Light for Christian culture had great significance because of the extensive Biblical associations of light with God himself, beginning with Genesis, “Let there be light”, and in the writings of Saint John the Divine. At this point, the Bible had become an important source of ideas about beauty, both esthetically and also in a moral sense. Illuminated Manuscripts flourished.
Icons and Art of the Eastern European Church
The developments of Church art in the East can be understood in several stages, or periods of Byzantine Culture: The Macedonian period, from 867-1056, the Komnenian period from1081-1185,and the Palaeologan Period 1259-1453. These political and cultural periods influenced the style of icons as we will see.
Macedonian Period (867-1056)
Macedonian Workshop at Paraskevi
Macedonian art grew with advancements in learning and significant church construction and restoration following the period of Iconoclasm. (see my previous article). The artistic achievements of the Macedonian dynasty reflected grace, drawn from the fourth century, with the strength and beauty of earlier Hellenistic traditions. This blend of qualities infused religious art and icons with a distinctive dignity, refinement, and balance. These characteristics became synonymous with Byzantine design, aligning harmoniously with religious themes.
Komnenian Period (1081-1185)
Mosaïque des Comnène, Sainte-Sophie (Istambul, Turquie)
The Komnenoi were great patrons of the arts, and with their support Byzantine artists continued to move in the direction of greater humanism and emotion, of which the Virgin of Vladimir is an important example. Ivory sculpture and other expensive mediums of art gradually gave way to frescoes and icons, gaining widespread popularity across the Empire. Although the art produced in the Byzantine Empire was marked by periodic revivals of a classical aesthetic, it was above all marked by the development of a new aesthetic defined by its abstract or anti-naturalistic character. If classical art was marked by the attempt to create representations that mimicked reality as closely as possible, Byzantine art seems to have abandoned this attempt in favor of a more symbolic approach.
Palaeologan Period (1259-1453)
Fresco from Leshovsky Monastery, 1347
Paelogan Byzantine artists developed icons, which became a popular medium for artistic expression, and were characterized by a less austere attitude. This appreciation for purely decorative qualities of painting and meticulous attention to details is sometimes referred to a Palaeologan Mannerism. Russian icon painting began by entirely adopting and imitating Byzantine art, as did the art of other Orthodox nations, and has remained extremely conservative in iconography.
The fall of Constantinople in 1453 was a significant event in the history of the Byzantine Empire, and it had a profound impact on the art world. Many Byzantine artists migrated to Italy, where they played a vital role in shaping the Italian Renaissance. of the Byzantine Empire in the preceding centuries.
The splendour of Byzantine art was always in the mind of early medieval Western artists and patrons, and many of the most important movements in the period were conscious attempts to produce art fit to stand next to both classical Roman and contemporary Byzantine art.
Religious Painting and Icons in the Western Church
The influence of Byzantine art on Italian art was significant, with Byzantine artists bringing their techniques and knowledge to Italy, especially the use of gold leaf and mosaics.
Three Italian painters of the 14th century, Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto, are generally considered the link between the earlier iconic style of painting with its flattened pictorial space, and simple, abstract compositions and little if any naturalistic details, and the Renaissance. In their work you will see that transition and the theme of the early development of naturalism that is the precursor to the Renaissance and the end of iconographic perspective.
Cimabue 1240-1302
Cimabue Maesta, di Santia Trinita
The paintings of Cimabue were heavily influenced by Byzantine iconography, and gradually they began to break away from that tradition into a more naturalistic rendering of human forms and space. His work is a transitional step in the development of western painting bridging the Medieval and Renaissance periods. His work clearly influenced the styles of other Italian artists at the time such as Duccio di Buoninsegna and showcases the ongoing evolution of Italian art.
Duccio 1250-1391. Sienna, Italy
Duccio, The Three Mary’s at the Tomb
Duccio , as the founder of the Sienese school of painting,was the predominant painter of the 14th century.He ran a large workshop which shaped generations of Sienese artists. His religious paintings brought a lyrical expressiveness and intense spiritual gravity to the Italo-Byzantine tradition. In a small devotional panel of the Madonna and Child, Duccio bridged the gap between the spiritual world of the figures and the real world of the viewer in very much the same way that Icons do. His holy figures were majestic, his pupils were influential in Florentine art, and his greatest work was the double-sided altarpiece, the ‘Maestà’, made between 1308-11. Both Duccio and Cimabue began their careers producing iconic altarpiece paintings in the flat, two dimensional style of Byzantine icons, and ended their careers with more naturalistic paintings. Both were enlivened and inspired by the Franciscan spirituality of their time.
Giotto di Bondone, Italian, 1267-1337
Giotto, The Dream of Joachim, 1330
Giotto was a Florentine painter and architect who is revered as the father of Western painting. It is believed that he was a pupil of Cimabue, and to have decorated chapels in Assisi, Rome, Padua, Florence, and Naples with frescoes and panel paintings in egg tempera.
Giotto’s figures are volumetric rather than linear, with varied human emotions expressed in a human style rather than the stylized faces of Byzantine icons. He also created a new kind of pictorial space with an almost measurable depth, transforming the flat world of thirteenth century painting in a more naturalistic view of the real world. For this, he is considered the father of modern European painting.
The great accomplishment of Giotto’s painting was to make the events of the Gospel and the lives of the holy saints both credible, beautiful, and appealing to the ordinary people of his day.
Conclusion
These artists were followed by the Renaissance in the 14th-16th centuries. Renaissance art, particularly in Italy, focused on realism, classical themes, and a renewed interest in the human form. It moved away from symbolism and abstraction in favor of naturalistic rendering of light, form and nature. In the next and final article in this series, I will explain the effect this development has had on religious painting and contrast Renaissance painting with Icons. Why is the Renaissance such a strong dividing line in religious art? Because it ushered in a humanistic world view as opposed to the theocratic world view prevalent before. The focus of our culture has gradually progressed from honoring God as creator to revering man’s creations, the truth of science over religious principles, and eventually to a nihilism in our culture that doesn’t recognize any power greater than ourselves. And that is why as an artist, I have chosen Icons as my art form, desiring to promote and demonstrate visually, God’s universe over man’s universe!
I hope you have enjoyed this article! Perfect for an end of summer, beginning of fall reading!
Here is a lovely video that talks about Siennese Icon Painting
May God continue to bless the work of your hands. Please join with me in prayer for the world :
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging…..”Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted in all the earth.” Psalm 46:1-3, 10.
Books and Inspiration to Enrich Your Icon Writing Practice
Summer unfurls like a painted scroll—light streaming through open windows, quiet hours stretching across the day, and, for the iconographer, a rare invitation to rest, reflect, and replenish the wellspring of inspiration. Whether you are a seasoned writer of icons, a beginner who has just dipped their brush into the egg tempera, or simply a lover of sacred art, the summer months offer an ideal time to step back from the demands of daily creation and immerse yourself in the wisdom, history, and spirituality that underpin the venerable and holy tradition of iconography.
Why Read in Summer? The Sacred Pause
In the stillness of summer, reading becomes a sacred pause—a time to deepen your understanding of icons not just as objects of devotion, but as living prayers in color and line. Iconographers often speak of their art as an act of contemplation: every stroke is a prayer, every layer a meditation. So too can reading be a contemplative act, enriching the mind and spirit while opening new vistas for creativity.
Foundational Texts: Revisiting the Roots
The Meaning of Icons by Leonid Ouspensky and Vladimir Lossky. This classic introduces the theological, spiritual, and artistic foundations of iconography. Through its pages, readers are led to understand the icon as a window to the divine, a theology in pigment, and a bridge between heaven and earth.
Icons and Saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church by Alfredo Tradigo. Tradigo’s compact yet richly illustrated guide offers both historical context and practical wisdom. Each page is a pilgrimage through time, introducing saints, feasts, and the symbolic language of orthodox sacred art.
Icons as Communion by George Kordis. Kordis brings the ancient tradition into the present, with notes and observations on the drawing stages in icon painting. Amazon Link
Orthodox Icon Patterns, Patterns and sketches for Iconographers: This is the revised version of Patterns & Sketches for Iconographers, with added content and additional patterns. A valuable resource for iconographers, this book contains a wide variety of patterns and sketches. Content including; icon patterns of the Nativity, the Theotokos, archangels, male and female saints, as well as halo patterns and 2 beautiful crucifixion crosses. Buildings and fabric/ background designs and icon borders. Each pattern is accompanied by color recommendations which are meant as a general guide allowing for adjustments due to differences in color names between pigments used with egg tempera and acrylic paints. (There is also a Volume II if you like this one.). Amazon Link
Summer Reads For Inspiration and Insight
Summer reading need not always be heavy with theory or thick with history. Sometimes, lighter fare—biographies, memoirs, and even novels—can kindle the imagination and nurture the soul of the artist. You might consider adding a few of these to your summer list:
Praying with Icons by Jim Forest. Accessible and warmly written, Forest’s reflections on the role of icons in prayer lift the heart and draw the reader into a deeper appreciation of how icons shape and are shaped by the life of faith.
The Mystical Language of Icons by Solrunn Ness. Nes explores in depth a number of famous icons, including those of the Greater Feasts, the Mother of God, and a number of the better-known saints, enriching her discussion with references to Scripture, early Christian writings, and liturgy. She also leads readers through the process and techniques of icon painting, showing each step with photographs, and includes more than fifty of her own original works of art. Amazon Link
And if you would enjoy a deep dive into the life of the Blessed Mother Mary, I recommend “The Life of the Blessed Virgin” from the visions of Ann Catherine Emmerich, Incredibly revealing and edifying background of Our Lady, her parents and ancestors, St. Joseph, plus other people who figured into the coming of Christ. also available on Amazon: Amazon Link
And also “True Devotion to Mary” by Louis de Montfort: Considered by many to be the greatest single book of Marian spirituality ever written, True Devotion to Mary is St Louis de Montfort’s classic statement on the spiritual way to Jesus Christ though the Blessed Virgin Mary. Amazon Link
And last, but not least, is my own book on Icon writing, “Eyes of Fire, How Icons Saved My Life As an Artist”, with an appendix full of directions as well as an explanation of how modern art has been influenced by icons and how some of those principles can be used in present day icon creation. Amazon Link
As the art historian Roger Lipsky says in his book, “An Art of Our Own, the Spiritual in Twentieth Century Art”, “One of the tasks of the spiritual in art is to prove again and again that vision is possible; that this world, thick and convincing, is neither the only world nor the highest, and that our ordinary awareness is neither the only awareness nor the highest of which we are capable.”
And so my purpose in sharing this list of inspirational summer reading is to encourage you to engage with the ‘pause” of the longer summer days, and ponder on the beauty of nature and be open to glimpses of eternity that a fresh perspective can often foster. And then let this “higher”perspective inform your icon practice in the coming year,. In the words of Aidan Hart, in his book, “Beauty, Spirit, Matter, Icons in the Modern World, “The Icon invites us to see the world as God sees it.” With nature all around of us. may God bless us with His perspective and insights to carry forward into our work.
American Association of Iconographers 