Iconography in England..……………………………………………………………….Pages

Central Events of the DioceseIconography in England By: Father Jonathan Bannon

Around early May of this year, I had the incredible blessing of visiting Midland England for a week to study iconography under the instruction of someone who has been called the greatest living iconographer of our time. His name is Aidan Hart and he has a gift for teaching. In the winter of 2021, I had listened to a recorded lecture by Aidan and encountered how he calmly presented the inner life of Orthodoxy as found visually depicted in iconography. I said to myself, ‘This is a person I need to spend some time with.” It was strictly his ability to articulate the icon’s depth in speech and execute it in paint that drew me to visit. Only later would I learn that he is world renowned, has met 3 canonized saints, his Spiritual Father was the late Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, that his work is in the private chapel of the Pope and once lived as a novice monk for 12 years considering monasticism and even building a small monastic hermitage on the vast hills of this beautiful country. So with the great help and encouragement of my family along with the blessing of our Hierarch, I set off with a bag of brushes, pigments, an icon board, a prayerbook, prayer rope and not much more. Little did I know what Midland England would offer,

especially in the Spring. Before instruction began on a Monday morning, I left Illinois on Saturday afternoon landing in Dublin, Ireland for a layover that would bring me to Birmingham at 7:30AM Sunday morning, just in time for Church one might say. From there I needed to board 3 trains and on the way to one of the town-stops named Craven Arms I sat with two young men about my age who told me they had been drinking heavily the night before. They were amazed asking, “what would bring a person to Craven Arms from so far away? A bus, two planes, 3 trains to Craven Arms!?” I couldn’t help but consider the joy of such a comment, with the answer being, “the depth and beauty of the icon and a person who has lived its theology.” We continued to enjoy each other’s company and I learned calling someone, “mate” is like saying “bro.” I felt among kindred spirits. Arriving at the historic town of Bishop’s Castle I had found my way to the Bed and Breakfast I would stay that night eagerly awaiting classes the next morning. Having been awake for so long I barely had the strength to explore the shops that lined cobblestone streets so instead at the encouragement of a villager I found my way to the top of a hill with a tavern’s garden that overlooked the horizon of a country I have never visited before. After ordering a glass of wine and offering prayers I went to get some needed rest. Because there are no Ubers in England or at least in these farm villages far from London, a handful of people leave their cell phone numbers on a community board near a grocery store and from there you can call for a ride. This would be the final step to getting to where I needed to be... Walcott Hall, an 18th Century Georgian Manor where a small room on the third floor in the old servants quarters would be my home for the next 5 days. This room oddly enough reminded me of my grandfather’s house in Stratford, Connecticut from furnishings to squeaky wooden floors. Here Wi-Fi was only available in the stairwell and this would become a blessing in disguise as who needs the internet when you are surrounded by green fields, pine trees, honey bees the size

of large grapes, not to mention the enclosed gardens with high brick walls that serve for destination weddings? This would become the place of encounter, unplugging from the world and being ready to study. Now this was all peripheral to why I wanted to travel so far, it could have been taught in a cave and I wouldn’t have cared. I simply wanted to meet Aidan Hart, someone whose humility taught more than words. If you asked him if he still carves icons he might tell you, “Not too much these days, but Prince (now King) Charles I has a few commissions.” So, with a cup of tea we began with a brief presentation on the richness of iconography and then made corrections to the pencil drawings we were required to have ready upon arrival. Over each day we would have demonstrations to show how to progress as we explored two methods of painting the garments of the Virgin Mary holding Christ in a garden. The first method was using a squirrel hairbrush with a large belly, that is a brush that can hold quite a bit of watered-down paint (egg mixed with ground pigment) that we would then erratically unload this color blue that will act as a foundation for further highlighted layers that build up the form of the Theotokos. Think of it as having a marbled foundational color of blue and then with each new layer you add additional white paint (a tint of the previous color) and you begin to create form with light. The second style was using a dry brush technique by making an underpainting in a single color (monochromatic) that resembles something of a charcoal drawing with the varied greyscale, dark areas and lighter areas showing the form of the upper garments of the Virgin. Once complete you cover the entirety of the underpainting with a few layers of a transparent color that binds it all and appears as if it had all been painted in the same color. It was as if you used a rich brown pigment and dry brushed/ cross-hatched all of the forms of the garment and then painted a light purple wash over it. Suddenly those browns now look like deep purples and it appears to be the form of the Virgin Mary.

Having attended icon workshops around the United States that often try

to have you complete an entire icon in 5 days, I appreciated the pace of this United Kingdom experience where we did not finish the icon intentionally, but focused on the garments alone. Each day was framed by two tea breaks, lunch and time to really soak in the technique of a given style. We worked with intention but we did not have any sense of break neck speed where learning can get trampled by the desire to get to a finish line. This theme of balance and steady intention would punctuate almost all we did as we were told over and over again when painting not to use the brush like a helicopter but like a swan landing, moving across the water and ascending again. We needed to be anything but helicopters. (Having a grandfather who worked at Sikorsky in Bridgeport, Connecticut, I had to consider the analogy with kindness.) We were called to be like swans. If you want a brush stroke that is intentional, from thin, to thick, to thin then like a swan lands softly and at a great angle you will need to hold the brush and glide the hand with the wrist and forearm slowly, look three times and painting once, unlike a helicopter that just lands and lifts abruptly. Doesn't that sound like advice for life itself? Truly, the blessings of this trip to England are too many to name... some I did not fully become aware of until I returned home to a land of billboards, consumer driven media and a celebrity focused divorce trial that gained way more attention than God Himself may be given in a day... back in England we simply painted, had tea... and

prayed with an occasional visit to the oldest working brewery in the United Kingdom right down the street (established 1642.)

Upon returning home I began to see things differently because my eyes adjusted to looking at two things for hours and hours: A master iconographer painting and then my own brush attempting to execute the lesson, seeing the singular line while also considering the whole of the image, thinking 3 to 7 steps ahead of how a choice of brush will affect the over all expression and goal of the icon that will speak theological truth and yet be the receptacle of prayer for broken, repentant or thankful hearts. When looking at the trees in Rockford, Illinois, I no longer saw them as I did before. For a day or two I could only see the width of branches and the direction they took before meeting leaves, how they were larger at the root and tapper out much like the iconographic brush strokes we aimed to teach our hands and arms to produce as we would pull the forearm across the panel rather than flicking the wrist. Aside from the jet lag which was vicious, tea drinking seems to have defeated my love of the bean these days and as the secular culture tries to claw me back to a distracted form of life I quickly make a cup of tea and return to England as much as I can and the blessings I received there. If I remembered anything... don’t be a helicopter.