What's Behind An Icon?

I think it is fair to say that months of hard work and many hours of devout prayer are "behind" every icon you might encounter. There is a blessing at the altar, prayers and dedication of the icon to its service as a witness to Christ.

In another sense, in an Orthodox church, the area behind the icon screen or iconostasis is called the sanctuary. The nave is where the parishioners stand or sit. This is the view from the nave of Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church.

But my question (in the title of this blog) was intended to be a more prosaic one. You normally see the front of icons in photos or in person. So some people wonder what the back looks like. I did. You can't just walk up and take one down to look at it, can you? So ...

Question? What does the back of an icon look like?

Answer? It varies. Let's take a look. [click on any image throughout this blog to enlarge it]

On many icons you will see a pair of reinforcing slats that were intended to reduce curvature of the main board. These have proven to be fairly ineffective, and the boards still curve. That means some of the slats will be loose or will have fallen out over the years.

Notice the evidence of wood-eating creatures in the icons above. Usually they are long dead, but it's worth checking closely because they can eat away much of the structure of the board.

Here are three of my icons of the Archangel Michael (the fronts are seen in the previous blog post).

The back may or may not be finished in any way. Iconographers rarely signed their works, as it is a bit self-assertive to do so. Here are two modern boards. On the left the artist did sign the back; on the right she did not give her name, but put the origin of the icon and name and logo of her studio (plus the web address).

Since many of the boards I own come from dealers, it's not unusual to find labels, notes, custom stamps and price information stuck on the back of the icon. I tend to leave all those intact.

Sometimes you will find that the icons boards will have gesso on the back as well as the front. Gesso is a plaster coating which makes the icon heavier, thicker, stronger, and more resistant to moisture changes and curving. Here are two of mine that are finished in this way.

Occasionally you find an icon with writing from the period of its creation. Although I can't read what is written, I still find these exciting. The one on the right not only has writing, the writing is on an original linen cloth that is tacked to the outer edges of the icon.

Here's the front of the icon with the cloth on its back:

Finally, I'll close this post with a triptych, which is a 3-panel folding icon that has both front and back sides on all three panels. Mary is just visible looking out at us from the center of this partially-open triptych.