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Revised & expanded: Icon Perspectives 1Project

OIC_projectA1e_icon_perspectives1_page6 copyThe Projects are in the form of photo albums which you can riffle through online, or download one or all pages onto your desktop to try out the design exercises. They are accompanied by high quality jpgs of specific icons which demonstrate the subject of the design exercises, and can be printed out as high quality icon models.

The new unit on perspectives in icons is OIC_projectA1e_icon_perspectives1_page2 copymuch more comprehensive than it’s predecessor. We start with an illustrated comparison of the three types of perspective – reversed, natural (vanishing point in the distance) and flat earth, with various examples. There are also slide lectures in mp4 format which explain these in greater depth.

The most important thing for us as iconographers is that, just as the meaning of the word OIC_projectA1e_icon_perspectives1_page14 copyof Scripture defines the shape of the chant, the meaning of the image creates the
‘perspective’ in which you see each person or event. Multiple and reversed perspectives are used freely and creatively in icons to display the true meaning of the event. On the whole, reversed perspectives make a saint immediately and dynamically present to us -much more so than if they were receding in ‘natural’ perspective.  The icon also presents the event from a multiple set of viewpoints – as if we were walking around the subject, looking at it from a number of angles, just as one does when one is meditating on a text of Scripture.

OIC_projectA1e_icon_perspectives1_page16 copyPerpectives part 1 includes  a number of projects based on common objects found in icons  – chairs and table ware, fonts and beds – together with architectural and landscape settings. The aim is to get together a sketchbook of drawings which will form your personal design resource, as you develop your skills in painting icons.
The download images are especially fine examples, largely from the Novgorod school, and it is worth coming onto the site simply to get a good collection of icons to print out as models for your icons – or even for veneration.

 

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