Growing an Icon, Part 3
by abbamoses
In this image, the figure of St Seraphim has been mostly “clothed,” though I expect to do some touching up.
When I’ve finished a session of painting, I often have no idea what the icon looks like — I’ve been too involved in the details and need to set it aside for a bit before I can decide how the session went and what needs to be done.
In doing the clothing, I try to work back-to-front: for example, to paint the cloak after the cassock, so that any outside-the-lines errors in the cassock will be overpainted when I do the cloak.
After some touching up, I hope to move on to face and hands.
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Saint Seraphim, while living as a hermit, was attacked and almost killed by a band of robbers who had heard tales of riches in monks’ cells. They found nothing, of course. After the Saint recovered, he walked with a stoop, presumably because his back had been broken. That’s why he’s shown hunchbacked in the icon.
Saints should be shown in “glorified” form in icons, their inner holiness reflected in their bodies. But icons often do show characteristic bodily quirks and infirmities. — there’s a balance that has to be discerned.
We’re taught that when Christ returns in glory, he will come bearing the wounds of his Crucifixion. So I hope that showing martyric wounds such as these is OK.
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