..."There are many who say that they have mastered the profession without having served under masters. Do not believe it; for I give you the example of this book: even if you study it by day and by night, if you do not see some practice under some master you will never amount to anything, nor will you ever be able to hold your head up in the company of masters..." Libro dell' Arte Cennino d'Andrea Cennini on studying under a master
Learn iconography from an Athonite monk
Techniques for applying egg tempera differ from those employed with modern mediums
Unlike oils, acrylic paints and watercolor paintings where the shades merge together freely and a mere suggestion is oftentimes sufficient for the viewer's eye to 'mix' colors and shapes on the canvas, thus "finishing" the work for the artist, egg tempera is extremely demanding in that it leaves nothing to chance. Because it cannot be allowed to mix with other colors already on the board, it is up to the iconographer to work painstakingly on every detail until it is fully completed. It is a perfect medium for demanding detailed work, but it requires far more patience and time then any of the ready made mediums. This is most obvious when working on the faces and skin: rather then applying different shades of the skin tone at the same time and merging them on the canvas to form facial features, egg tempera requires layered application, from dark to light. Each layer should be lighter then previous, very thin (dry brush technique) and applied only on top of completely dry layers. Furthermore, visible brush strokes, however intriguing and encouraged in secular art, are considered a poor execution on behalf of an iconographer and are not the proper way to paint holy personages - everything has to be perfectly silky and smooth, like the image was only highlighted and made visible, not painted. Since the iconographer is only in service to the Holy Spirit, his hand should not dominate the image or be visible, either. Forming faces with egg tempera can sometimes take weeks, but the results are well worth the effort. Egg tempera is more durable than mass-produced mediumsEgg is not only a natural binder, it also has inimitable brilliance and transparency and calcifies when dry, so the surfaces painted with egg tempera are more durable then any other modern medium. There are numerous examples of durability and quality of egg tempera paintings throughout: while many oil paintings of the Old Masters are peeling and cracking and need to be carefully restored few hundred years later, icons painted with egg tempera are surviving for over six and seven centuries. More then that, when varnish is taken off some of the very old icons, colors underneath are still fresh and preserved as if painted just few days ago. For panel icons, no other medium can compare to or replace well applied egg tempera. |
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