St. John the Theologian with St. Prochorus

ca. 26" x 24" x 0.75"

Acrylics with 23.5K gold leaf

This is the first of two planned icons of St. John; one as the very old man who is dictating the Gospel of St. John to his disciple, St. Prochorus, and the other one will be of St. John as a very young man (teenager?) who is the "Beloved Disciple" who stood at the foot of the cross and helped bury Jesus, and who ran to the tomb on Easter morning upon hearing the news from Mary Magdalene that, "He's risen!"

This icon is set on the desert island of Patmos where St. John is in exile for preaching the Good News.  Since he can't see well enough up close to write by his own hand, he is dictating his Gospel, and also the book of Revelation, to his young disciple, St. Prochorus.  The red, orange, yellow fan shape in the upper left hand corner will have fine rays of pure gold leaf streaming toward his right ear - as a symbol of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit who speaks the Word to St. John and St. John in turn speaks the words to St. Prochorus.

 

Summer of 2013

North wall of my icon studio

311 Manitou St., Northfield, MN

The very top icon is my copy of Rublev's "Holy Trinity" or "The Visit to Abraham"; right below it is a copy of "Pantocrator" that I did in a class with Philip Davidov & Olga Shalamova (teachers from St. Petersburg, Russia); below that is an egg tempera icon in process - The Virgin of Czestochowa ; next to that is my icon processional cross - more of that later as I work on it; and above that is my icon of "Pentecost" with 33 figures.  I'll try and post details of all of these icons.

Close up of central icon, reverse side, processional cross

Summer 2013

The cross itself is ca. 26 inches tall by 24 inches wide, double sided and 2 inches thick at the edges.  I made the wood cross and gessoed it with acrylic gesso - based on the premise that genuine gesso is too brittle to be used on an object that someday is almost guaranteed to smack a door frame or lintel when being carried around!  I'm no fan of acrylic gesso, but it does have the virtue that it's almost bullet proof and simply WILL NOT ever crack!  

There will be a lot of detail added to the cross - the theme of this side is the last chapter of the Book of Revelation - The Lamb (out of sight at the very top), the River of Life, the Tree of Life, the Twelve Fruits on the River of Life, all of which flows over the whole world (out of sight at the very bottom of the cross).  Beside Jesus' head will be four symbols of the Four Evangelists.  

The edges that are beveled toward the icons will be gilded in 23K gold leaf, the River of Life will be "gilded" with "silver" and the river itself will have some textured gesso behind the silver.  

The obverse side is the Cross of St. Damiano - the traditional cross associated with St. Francis of Assisi.  That side is almost complete except for the gilding.