The Icon

The Icon offers a comprehensive introduction to an art form that remains integral to the liturgical and devotional practices of Christianity. It explores how icons have been used and venerated for two millennia, and considers a range of topics, including historiography, artistic process, theology, use in domestic settings, and various typologies.

The Icon offers a comprehensive introduction to an art form that remains integral to the liturgical and devotional practices of Christianity in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and beyond.  Written by an international team of scholars, it explores how icons have been used and venerated for two millennia, and considers a range of topics, including historiography, artistic process, theology, use in domestic and ecclesiastical settings, and various typologies. Thematic essays chart the origins and development of the icon from its origins in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages; through the various schools of icon painting that flourished in the Orthodox world during the medieval era; and its prolonged afterlife following the fall of Byzantium in 1453. Richly illustrated with over 300 color and black-and-white illustrations, The Icon provides a magisterial overview of a vital genre of religious art with enduring appeal across time and space.