Category: icon paintings

The Icon Secret

So, as I was saying, I have this icon painting that is pretty old.  When my uncle visited my husband’s car repair business with his car, he slipped this icon to him telling him to give it to me.  My father’s oldest brother was an artist with wood.  He refinished antique furniture, made his own pieces, violins, really beautiful things.  When my husband and I were getting married, my uncle was going to refinish a Louis XVI chair for us as a gift.  He had three chairs and he was going to use two of them to finish the better of the three.  Well, his wife, my aunt, found them in his workshop at home and threw them out with the trash!  Louis XVI chairs!

I don’t know what happened when my uncle found out, but he ended up making us a backgammon board with different natural colored woods, inlaid in the typical design and rubbed to a glossy finish.  It’s a beautiful piece, but it’s not a Louis XVI chair.

He came to the repair shop with the icon hidden in his coat.  He told my husband not to say anything about it as he slipped him the painting, holding his finger to his lips.  We never discussed the wheres and the whys of how he came to own it.  Not too long afterwards he had passsed away, but thrilled to know I was in possession of this icon.  I do know that he wanted me to paint in the parts that were missing.  How could I do that?  I didn’t want to touch it and left it as it was.

At one time my uncle had his own furniture refinishing business, but it didn’t work out.  He ended up working in Manhattan at a company called Dalva Brothers where he stayed for a long time.  He had some of his own clients as well and did some work in his home.  Maybe someone gave it to him to finish?  Maybe he found it somewhere in a shop?  I don’t know, but I own it now and it’s hanging on my wall. 

The icon depicts the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary.  You can see the Angel announcing the news to Mary.  What’s interesting about this icon is that God is also depicted, which is very rare, and his word is shown as a dove.  It was painted on a wood surface with some kind of fabric backing and it’s curved.  A frame was fashioned to fit around the curve.  It’s really beautiful.  A couple of artist friends looked at it once and thought it may be Venetian in style.  Now that I’ve seen the El Greco and Cretan icon paintings I’m thinking the same thing, but could it be that old?  What to do now? 

This week I plan to do some investigating by looking up someone to bring this icon to evaluate it, possibly at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  It may be the only place I could get an idea without someone trying to steal it from me!  Hey, you never know.

On a Date with El Greco

Last week I planned a big Artist’s Date in NYC.  I visited my sister’s apartment to see her Christmas tree before she took it down and since I was there I wanted to go to the El Greco Icon Paintings exhibit at the Onassis Foundation/Cultural Center. 

I know I’m supposed to go on these artist dates all alone, but I’ll plan another one like that.  This was different because we were together anyway so it made sense to go together.  The Onassis Center is on Fifth Avenue and 51st Street, right smack in the tourist areas.  Nearby is Rockefeller Center, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf-Goodman, and many of the designer stores like Gucci, and the lot.  Of course a pair of on-sale Manolo Blahnik shoes from Bergdorf’s found their way into a shopping bag and followed me out the door, but we won’t go there for now.

The El Greco exhibit wasn’t all El Greco, but a view of the context of artists and style of icon painting that he emerged from.  The Greek island of Crete, where the artist was born, in the 1200’s was a Venetian territory and the artists developed icons in the Byzantine style as well as adopting a Late Gothic style since Crete was a multicultural society at that time.  Artists such as Bellini, Raphael, and Titan were influences on these icon painters.  At this time, Crete was overflowing in the number of churches and there was a great need for this work. The artists moved between Constantinople, Crete and Venice as apprentices, Domenikos Theotokopoulos among them at about 1563, when he became a master icon painter.
As a Greek Orthodox christian, to me these were not only paintings, but icons of the saints of our church.  The exhibition space was large and dimly lit and I wanted to venerate each icon as we viewed them.  Of course, the paintings stand alone as art pieces.  We were able to look at the work up close enough to see the brush strokes.  These are very old paintings, many of them having been repaired over the years from many causes.  The artists painted on treated wood and the icons were hanging in churches, monasteries, and I’m sure, not under the best conditions.  At least now they are being preserved.  Some works were wall size pieces, and many were smaller sized.
By the time El Greco (“The Greek”) developed his signature style of painting he was living in Venice, around 1568, where he became an apprentice once again studying Western European art in the Venetian style.  He was living in Toledo, Spain by 1576, where he spend the rest of his life.  The elongated figures and chiaraschuro, that represents his final style is totally different than that of his Cretan icons and is very well depicted in this exhibition.
While viewing this exhibit I was reminded of an icon I have at home.  It was given to me by my uncle who was an antique furniture restorer.  Where he got this icon I’ll never know, but it has these same Venetian influences!  So now I’m on a quest to find out more about it.  Tomorrow photos!