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To: Tax-chick
"bear upper half"

LOL.

The #11 is also remarkable for very strident use of inverse perspective in treating human face. Observe how the front features of the face, -- eyes, mouth, and nose, -- seem small relative to the neck and chin. That is not an accident. In fact the thin red beard circumferencing the plump chin is there to further strengthen the potato head effect. Why?

Iconography is known for systematic use of inverse perspective: rather than capturing the rays of light directed at your eye, as in photography or realistic painting, inverse perspective depicts an object as if you walked around it. The object becomes the optical center around which your eye is forced to travel. It is tricky to do so unobtrusively, and this iconographer possibly overdid it. But some degree of inverse perspective is a necessary element of an icon. See, for example, in this Holy Trinity icon the furniture and the architectural elements all shown in inverse perspective, making the communion chalice the center.



Holy Trinity
(The Hospitality of Abraham)

Rublev, 15 C.

The theological aspect of this is now clear. Realistic, linear perspective makes the observer the psychological center because he is, due to the mechanics of it, the geometrical center. Inverse perspective makes the holy object the center and the observer is placed nowhere in particular around the object: psychologically, he is on the outside looking in. This makes the holy object the reality and the act of observing it accidental and relatively unimportant, teaching us the proper psychological posture when in the presence of God.

The sense of serenity, palpable in the Savior icon at #11, is the outcome of this iconographic technique: it reminds you that your life only matters in relation to Christ and while centered around Christ.

32 posted on 03/21/2015 8:34:10 AM PDT by annalex (fear them not)
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To: annalex

Fascinating.


33 posted on 03/21/2015 8:37:11 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Google "tiny kitten pictures," and put down the gun.)
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