Words seem inadequate when writing about icons. For some they are a commodity. For others they are equally valuable as a copy or an original; they are objects of veneration, even the very presence of God with us.
According to Mr Steve Higgins, who organised a unique exhibition of icons at Galway cathedral last year, people of the eastern churches "show the same reverence for the icon as they do for the Bible". The icon is "visual theology", portraying the humanity of Christ. "Icons keep the incarnation alive for us. Through the image, the icon tries to reveal the actual presence of Christ in the viewer's contemplative gaze. We are invited to open our eyes and discover Christ now as the one who is ever present with us."
He says the anatomy in Greek icons is important. The typically small mouth symbolises that the holy figure is not talking but listening to the person looking at it. That the figure is listening is also conveyed by the angle of the ears, turned to the beholder. The figure encounters the unique identity of the beholder as they are in the here and now. Mr Martyn Saunders-Rawlins, a consultant in the Russian department of Sotheby's in London, says there's a well-established market for icons. "We've had icon sales at Sotheby's for 20 years."
Greek and Russian icons from the 15th to the 19th centuries appear on the market. Most tend to be from the 19th century. But icons are still being made today, including in this State, where there is an active Association of Iconographers of Ireland. To the believer, it hardly matters whether they are praying before a copy or an original icon. But there are misconceptions concerning copies.
According to Mr Saunders-Rawlins: "There's a general misconception that icons are faked. But the thing that disproves that is if the majority of icons are ones encountered in the 19th century, and the majority of those are probably worth less than £500 [€635], why would anybody actually go to the bother of faking them?" Most reproductions he encounters have been painted - or "written" - comparatively recently in Greece. "But they are still, nevertheless, icons in the true sense of the word in that they do have a spiritual value to believers," he says.
Asked if icons were for him purely a commodity, he says: "I think that truly great icons do impart a level of spirituality to the people that see them irrespective of what their own particular beliefs are . . . If I see something which is of low quality it doesn't `turn me on', as it were.
"But if I see something that has a great deal of integrity to it and you can detect that it was painted true to the canons of Byzantine law, yes I am moved by them as I would hope other people would be.
"Some collect them simply because they recognise them as a comparatively unrecognised art area. Many people misunderstand them because they make comparisons between Byzantine art and Italian art . . . But there are a great many who collect because they do actually have meaning to them."
The highest price he encountered was some £300,000 sterling (€480,000) for an icon from the early 15th century. Most 19th century Russian icons of reasonable quality tend to go for "several hundred pounds".
A Christie's auction on May 15th includes icons of the Virgin and Child, and of Jesus. Icons don't tend to come up for auction very often in the Republic, according to art expert, Mr James O'Halloran - a view echoed by Mr Ian Whyte of Whyte's auction rooms, Dublin. However, recent sales of religious pictures have done well, exceeding their pre-auction estimates.
The Association of Iconographers of Ireland can be contacted c/o 8 Westbrook, Barna Road, Galway. Telephone: 091591837.
Readers can send photographs of icons to be valued to Mr Martyn Saunders-Rawlins, Sotheby's Russian Department, 34-35 New Bond Street, London W1A 2AA.
jmarms@irish-times.ie
