19th Century, Russia, Icon of Christ Pantocrator

19th century, Russia

Icon of Christ Pantocrator

Tempera on wood, 44,5 x 39 cm

The icon, from the Greek eikon, image, presents the narration of some episodes from the life of the Virgin and Jesus, constituting a theological treatise in colour.

The particularity of the icons is already highlighted by the preparation of the support on which it is painted. The wooden board itself is a symbol of the cross, while the canvas is a symbol of the mandylion, or the veil of Veronica, or the Shroud; the chalk that is spread on the canvas, the levkas is a symbol of the stone. The icons were painted on wooden boards, generally made of lime, larch or fir. An excavation, called a "casket" or "ark", was generally made on the internal side of the tablet in order to leave a frame in relief on the edges. The icon is not a personal interpretation but a ritual with precise canons to be respected; unlike paintings, of which the author's name is often known, the icon must remain anonymous. Theology believed that icons were works of God himself, created through the hands of the iconographer.

Christ Pantocrator is one of the iconographic subjects which, starting from the 4th century, represent the isolated image of Christ: this type of image is widespread in Western medieval art and we find it on painted panels, frescoes and apse mosaics, bas-reliefs and high-reliefs which decorate entrance portals and interiors of churches; as far as eastern Byzantine art is concerned, the fortune of this iconographic theme is not limited to the medieval period and has also been proposed in the contemporary world.

Christ Pantocrator is portrayed full-length or just the bust, as in this case; his hair is parted on his head and he has a thick beard. With a severe appearance and eyes fixed on the observer, he holds a book with his left hand and with his right he performs the gesture of the speaking hand, a gesture transformed into an act of blessing in the late Middle Ages. When the book is opened, we find inscriptions that are the very voice of Christ. In the guise of Pantocrator (from the Greek pantocrator, ruler of all things), Christ is the ordering principle of reality, the synthesis of cosmic elements and spatial coordinates, the original unity of all living creatures.

The object is in good condition

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