“Our Handiwork Reflects our Interior State”

You’re wondering why St. Nektarios’ eyes are painted when his face isn’t even finished. But, you see, he was finished until my teacher saw him and made me erase everything (except the eyes) and start over. He’s strict but good!

[Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain] insisted that iconographers make good icons, because, as he put it, “A precher’s sermon only lasts a little while, but an icon is an eternal sermon. For example, we look at an icon of the Panagia, and we’re comforted by it. Of course, if the icon isn’t well-made, if the Panagia has a harsh expression – stern eyes and so on – its ‘sermon’ has a negative effect. Someone was telling me, ‘I go stand in front of an icon of Christ and want to open my heart. But then I see Him looking at me angrily, like a German solider, and I tense up.’

“An icon can work miracles when it carries the grace of the saint who’s in it. Whatever the iconographer loves shows up in the icon. Usually, we put ourselves in. A woman loved her sister, and she put her sister in. Everything we give completely to God takes on grace. Our handiwork reflects our interior state. If you’re reverent, your handiwork will be full of reverence. If you have anxiety, then it’ll transmit something demonic.”

(Elder Paisios of Mount Athos by Hieromonk Isaac, p. 412)

A friend of mine told me something similar: An iconographer had finished an icon he was painting and took it to his priest to show him. The priest held the icon and examined it.

“You’ve committed a sin,” he said, and then stated the particular, unconfessed sin the iconographer had committed.

“Why do you say that, father?” the iconographer asked.

“I can see it in your icon,” he answered.

And so the words of the Elder are confirmed; we need to paint (chant, etc.) with great care because we convey our interior states on our work.

Gerontissa Philareti always says, “Whatever you are feeling when you are painting is put into the icon. If you are angry; the icon will look angry. If you’re anxious; the saint’s expression will convey this. So, you need to be peaceful and prayerful when you paint.”