grain: "angel embodied"

2011. jan. 6.

"angel embodied"

(tustinta, tegnap éjjel, egy könyvből / indian ink, yesterday night, on the basis of a black and white photo (fresco?) from the book: Η Τεχνική της Αγιογραφίας)

Saint John the Baptist, winged as an "angel embodied", is shown in the mountains of desert. He faces right and bows to Christ, who blesses him from a quadrant of the heaven in the top corner, and directs an eloquent gaze at the Lord. In his right hand he raises a staff topped by a cross, and his left holds a scroll, unrolled in front of him, with the text of his words "Thou seest, O Word of God what they suffer who reprove loathsome wrongdoing, for Herod could not hear it and cut off my head, Saviour". In the bottom right foreground is the decapitated head, with the halo, in an elegant footed bowl. At the opposite side of the icon a charming turtle-dove pecks at a branch of the tree against which the axe is leaning (Luke 3:9). Its role in the scene as a speaking symbol for Saint John is indicated by the verses of the hymn sung at the feast of the Decapitation, which are painted near the bird in an icon of the same type by Ieremias Palladas in the Sinai Monastery, dating from 1612: "The turtledove who loved the wilderness, the holy Baptist, preaching repentance and revealing Christ". Beneath the head, at the right end of icon, can be seen the artist's signature in black letters ΧΕΙΡ ΑΓΓΕΛΟΥ (Hand of Angelos).

/Bibliography: Acheimastou-Potamianou: Eikones/ from the Byzantine Museum Athen book