Abstract
The good news for those made sick by AI-generated “icons” is that those seeking introductions to actual, historic Orthodox icons in the present atmosphere are not without options, and we need such guidebooks as never before. The iconographer Aidan Hart, in addition to producing his massive compendium Festal Icons has offered theological companion volumes aimed at a general audience. 1 Maximos Constas’ The Art of Seeing is visual theology at the absolute highest—but still accessible—level, Stephanie Rumpza's philosophical approach in Phenomenology of the Icon is a genuine masterpiece, and Andreas Andreopoulos’s Gazing on God is elegantly perspicacious. 2 For those who prefer books that might fall under the category of “spirituality,” Henri Nouwen's classic Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons endures alongside the now third edition of Jim Forest's Praying with Icons, just released after the author's death in 2022. 3 Not to be left out is Solrunn Nes’ The Mystical Language of Icons, Frederica Mathewes-Green’s The Open Door, or Rowan Williams’ small but potent volumes. 4 For those wishing a historical focus, Robin Cormack's Icons or Weitzman's The Icon is still available, to say nothing of other historically gauged introductory overviews. 5 Meanwhile, older classic guides such as Constantine Cavarnos’ Guide to Byzantine Iconography or Leonid Ouspensky and Vladimir Lossky's The Meaning of Icons are still widely read, not to mention Iconostasis, the flaming broadside against Western art penned by the priest and martyr Pavel Florenksy, 6 even while serious recent critiques of strictly traditional approaches have complicated such accounts. 7 There are also basic introductions expressly aimed at Western Christians, such as Jeana Visel's Icons in the Western Church: Toward a More Sacred Encounter, which cautions against unauthorized experimentation, or the earlier volume Windows Into Heaven: Introducing Icons to Protestants and Catholics. 8 Then there are the robust online offerings such as Orthodox Arts Journal or Icons and Their Interpretation. 9 And those are only a few (by no means exhaustive) available introductory resources I am aware of in English.
Eve Tibbs’ Seeing the Gospel is one of the latest volumes to enter this admirable company. The author departs from an expressly Orthodox point of view, though the book includes a confessional preface from former Fuller Seminary president Richard Mouw, who admits he has not given icons sufficient attention. Tibbs draws upon some of the aforementioned introductory volumes that preceded her contribution, and she specifically aims to guide “visually oriented contemporary Christians” in a digital age such as ours. 10 Because she begins by setting aside her “personal attachment” to offer “an academic text that explores the interpretation of scriptural meaning depicted in icons,” one might initially wonder if Tibbs is choosing to leave aside the spiritual dimension of icons. 11 But she happily upends that claim in the next few pages by celebrating her deeply personal attachment to icons via her grandmother, and by offering a “warm welcome to readers to accompany me on a spiritual odyssey….” 12 She then thankfully insists “this books is more than an academic exploration of icons… [it is] an immersive experience.” 13 What a pleasure to see this ghost of “academic” expectation promptly expelled in a book that still benefits from academic precision without ever being dry.
What Tibbs seems to be gesturing toward in her claim to academic rigor is the Biblical and exegetical foundation of icons, a tactic which I expect is aimed in particular at her largely Protestant students at Fuller Seminary. Tibbs helpfully compares the Bible to “a libretto for icons.” 14 Part I of the book offers a “Basic Introduction” that is especially helpful. But even if it is primarily aimed at beginners, the book will reawaken a first love of the subject for those already quite familiar with icons as well. Tibbs rightly resists lingering romanticism about “Art,” insisting that “[t]he iconographer's personal aesthetic becomes submissive to the theological version of the Church.” 15 Equally laudable is her insistence that “it is not actually the case that ancient iconographers did not understand the techniques used in the three-dimensional art,” 16 for they used a more restrained style by choice. Her section on the Iconoclastic controversy might have been helped by a discussion of the later phases of the controversy from Theodore the Studite in particular, but this omission is completely understandable in an introductory volume. 17
The book's second part offers a uniquely calibrated overview of classic icons. Tibbs begins with an examination of the practice of making icons without descending into tedious technicalities. 18 She exegetes charming details such as the two small strands of hair on Christ's forehead, which Tibbs suggests represent the divine and human natures. 19 This causes me to wonder if a single strand on icons of Christ in the same book might illustrate Miaphysite doctrine as well. 20 Tibbs’ careful delineation of terms, helpfully defined in the glossary, such as “dual representation” or “hierarchical perspective” or “inverse perspective” is especially instructive for teaching the visual grammar of icons and is helpfully collated in a glossary of terms at the end of the book. Even so, her steady polemic against the “natural” or “naturalistic” 21 might be misunderstood. For example, Tibbs’ steady dismissal of Leonardo Da Vinci as a foil 22 could leave some readers puzzled when they learn that Leonardo also made icons, 23 or that Orthodox iconographers were confident enough to translate Leonardo's “Treatise on Painting” into Greek. 24
Technical matters considered, Tibbs moves on to the story of the gospel through art, fittingly beginning with John the Forerunner, moving on to archangels, and the primary gospel scenes. Her Scriptural focus enables her to be both consistently illuminating and efficient as she proceeds through her subjects. The lavish illustrations are a great gift to the reader, making this book “immersive” indeed, almost participating in the liturgical mysteries it celebrates. In fact, a prayerfully attentive reader might get more of a sense of Orthodox iconography's mystical dimensions through this book than an inattentive participant in the Divine Liturgy itself. Some of the icons Tibbs chose for full color illustrations were even literally resurrected, after having been buried under the Yarloslav Art Museum during the communist years. Especially welcome are the mosaics of Tibbs’ home parish in Irvine, California. This book clearly emerges not merely from the academy but from the Church.
Propelled by memes, podcasts, and videos, too many rumors circulate about the so-called “meaning of icons,” and many of these interpretations, often assumed to be somehow fixed and unchanging, are especially unhelpful. Tibbs’ book clears the air and either anchors these folk associations to Scripture or clearly explicates how they arose in the tradition. To highlight just one detail, Tibbs shows how “[t]he swaddling clothes of the Nativity Icon prefigure the graveclothes left behind (Matt 27:59; Luke 24:12).” 25 This fact is not only stated, but is amply illustrated in beautiful close-up detail in color.
Notably, Tibbs departs from a standard overview of the twelve main festal icons with the inclusion of icons of Christ's ministry, including the Feeding of the Five Thousand, the Mystical Supper, or Christ Calming the Storm, which are well attested in Byzantine art, even if they rarely appear in introductory volumes. Tibbs also adds Christ's encounter with the Samaritan woman to this list, not to mention the story of the subsequent ministry of this woman in African and Rome, a woman whom the tradition named Photini (“the enlightened one”). Like Mary Magdalene, Photini has long been hailed as an “Equal to the Apostles,” and the ministry of this woman who met Christ at a well ironically ended with her being thrown into one. 26
Those who might assume this book would be lockstep with only “traditional” depictions will be surprised to discover that Tibbs includes one contemporary artist's depiction of the Transfiguration, which out of understandable temerity, refuses to show Christ at all. 27 Many other surprises await readers of this lavishly illustrated yet still affordable book. I expect Tibbs’ decision to end with the Pentecost icon instead of the Dormition icon (where most traditional accounts, and iconographical programs conclude) is understandable considering her audience. For some, the Dormition icon can be a bridge too far. 28
Tibbs’ polemic against substandard “Western images of Easter” 29 is content with a cheap internet image of three empty crosses silhouetted against a sunrise, forgetting masterpieces like the Isenheim altarpiece. Though perhaps the blame here goes to John Dominic Crossan, upon whom Tibbs relies, and who—much unlike Tibbs—believes that Jesus’ body became “easy prey for scavenging animals.” 30 In fact, Tibbs corrects the Crossans by including the icon of the Myrrhbearing Women at the Empty tomb in her book, an Orthodox icon that emphasizes Christ's bodily resurrection. Like Mary Magdalene, Tibbs boldly proclaims not a mere “a parable of possibility” 31 (as do the Crossans), but the Church's actual hope: “Jesus is risen and death has been conquered!” 32
As the reader has now perceived, this wonderful book is slightly marred by needless sideswipes against Roman Catholicism, Augustine, and the Renaissance. 33 Tibbs’ opening assertion that “Icons not only inhabit Orthodox churches but also may be found in every room of an Orthodox Christian” caused me to mentally survey the many evangelicals, Anglicans, Episcopalians and Roman Catholics I know whose homes, offices and churches are also festooned with icons. Yet early on Tibbs flatly states that “Iconographers must be faithful members of the Orthodox Church.” 34 Of course, Tibbs’ pushback to the merely aesthetic embrace of icons is understandable. But her assertion that icon makers must be Orthodox brings several questions to mind.
Should Orthodox churches in England that have adopted an icon of Julian of Norwich made by an Anglican now consider it somehow defective even if it adheres to traditional Byzantine design? 35 Do icons made by an Orthodox Christian that depart from the visual wisdom Tibbs lays out in this book somehow get a pass? 36 More severely, are the now widely documented use of “traditional” icons to bolster the war in Russia by Orthodox Christians somehow more faithful than stylistically canonical icons painted by compromised “Western” Christians? 37 To choose one last example, is the Russian Cathedral of the Armed Forces, because it was constructed by Orthodox Christians and contains many icons, somehow more God-honoring than a tiny Roman Catholic parish accented by several traditional icons reverently painted by a “Western” Christian artist?
Even so, I wonder Tibbs’ book itself is the answer to such difficult questions. The glory of this volume in particular arises from its ecumenical context, as Tibbs has grounded icons in Scripture, owing in part to her primarily Protestant audience. Just as Bradley Nassif shows how his conversation with evangelicalism has elicited the gospel dimensions of Orthodoxy, so perhaps has Tibbs’ audience helped her tease out Biblical dimensions of icons. 38 The book is, therefore, in my reading at least, more genuinely ecumenical than some of its statements, read in isolation, might suggest.
In sum, the very same book that claims it is “academic” obviously transcends the limitations of the academy. The very same book that claims to limit true icons to Orthodoxy is written generously enough to extend iconographical wisdom beyond the boundaries of that venerable wing of Christ's Church. The very same book that says “iconographers strive to present the meaning of the gospel as accurately as possible in form and color, without skewing the image according to the natural world or to the painter's own ego,” 39 also boldly insists that “the differences between the icons speak to the fact that each iconographer adds his or her own creative talents and personal style while visually rendering the same event.” 40
On that last point, surely we can say the same thing about books about icons. They are thankfully not “facsimiles” but benefit from the author's “literary style” and “specific audience.” 41 On this point, Tibbs’ disciplined labor and personal inflections, not to mention her non-Orthodox audience, have made a singularly helpful contribution to this field. Seeing the Gospel, therefore, handily corrects any slight limitations I may have here indicated, leaving me with nothing but praise. Christians in the developed world today are faced with a visual challenge—digital culture—that no generation in Christian history has been faced with, and therefore all Christians need the tested wisdom of the icons discussed in this book. Mouw is right to say we should not be content with nibbling the crumbs from the Orthodox aesthetic table. Fortunately, the feast that Tibbs invites us to (in my reading at least) does not require that anyone be rebaptized. May the genre that the Tibbs has so ably and generously contributed to continue to expand.