Your face I seek

The icons are made in prayer. Especially in the past, the iconographer who was about to write an icon prepared himself with a few days of fasting and then remained locked in the laboratory until he finished it.

The icons thus became an expression of prayer itself. The more the iconographer manages to transform his brushstrokes into invocations, praises, silence of listening and adoration, the more the icon will become an expression of this internal "work", of this "encounter" between the soul and God. Of course, the aesthetic results also depend on the fineness of the hand and the iconographer's experience, but the heart and intention are the fundamental thing.

And an attentive eye, which belongs to a heart that knows the same desire, the same feeling, realizes that it is facing a work that truly speaks of Jesus and knows how to recognize it. In the history of iconography there are many famous examples of this phenomenon. Among all the icon of the Savior written by Andrei Rublev (see Np January 2017). A well-known icon, created with the refinement of the stroke and the majestic elegance that distinguish the works of the Russian monk, who has spanned the centuries (it was created around 1410) to speak again with the intensity of his gaze, of a silence very attentive, scrutinizing, immersed in a calmness and meekness of soul that smacks of mercy, which speaks of royalty and peace.
The same story of this icon is very interesting: lost for centuries, it was found towards the end of the 1800s in a peasant house and used as a plank (upside down) of a floor that led into a stable. The deterioration of the image due to humidity and the conditions of its ... "conservation", however, inexplicably spared the substance of the message: the face and the look, the vividness of the colors. A case? A pure coincidence?

Let us stop in front of this image, let us stop before the desire of our heart to seek his face in us, his sacred presence, which like a treasure painted and hidden for centuries, waits, with infinite patience, to be "found" to reveal itself in all its splendor, in all the beauty of its peace and mercy.
This is how an icon, certainly inspired, enriched with a truly particular story, becomes a beautiful parable of the infinite love of God who for centuries is able to wait for his creature, to be rediscovered and reciprocated in love.


Chiara Dal Corso
NP August / September 2020