Hill area artists' icons on exhibit in church

By MARIE FOWLER

"It must be genetic," says Mary Hansbury of Chestnut Hill, referring to her love of iconography. After all, both her parents came to this area from Ireland, home of the legendary Book of Kells, a cornerstone of holy art.

Hansbury is one of 10 area artists whose work is currently on view in "Hope of Glory" at All Saints' Church in Wynnewood. This exhibition features icons made in the Byzantine-Russian tradition of the 15th and early 16th centuries, revived in this country by master iconographer Vladislav Andrejev. The exhibiting artists are all students of the Philadelphia Iconography Workshop of Andrejev's Prosopon School of Iconology. Internationally acclaimed iconographer Susan vonMedicus of Fort Washington heads the Philadelphia workshop.

While these egg tempera paintings, using all natural materials, may be enjoyed solely as objects of art, they are, in reality, liturgical images. "Icon" comes from the Greek "eikon," meaning "image." Icons are religious paintings, the creation of which are to the iconographers a form of prayer. Each step of the process is highly symbolic and properly called "writing," not painting.

As vonMedicus often observes, "Icons are not expressions of individual artistic thought" but "prototypes of prayer ... you're not creating new concepts ... the artist leaves the ego at home."

Hansbury has been interested in icons since she was in her early 20s. A scholarship enabled her to spend weeks in a French monastery observing monks painting. "There weren't any teachers in this country," Hansbury says, "or none that I was aware of, so you didn't think of studying it." A Ph.D. in Early Christian studies enabled her to travel to the Holy Lands, where she worked on translations.

Her father's illness brought Hansbury home from China some years ago, and a flyer in the Lutheran library in Mt. Airy caught her eye. "Some things just radiate," she remembers, "like gold stars." It was an announcement of an iconography class at the Cathedral Church of the Savior in West Philadelphia to be given by Andrejev.

Hansbury has been an iconographer ever since. Painting allowed her to work at home while she cared for her father over the seven long years of his illness. "Like many of the Irish who kept their imagination alive in spite of generations of poverty and oppression," Hansbury observes; her father was drawn to the icons as well, offering his daughter advice on color and design.

She stresses the importance of the image "in the life of faith," especially in the modern world where people are bombarded by media at every turn. Hansbury, who has done translating from the Syriac, much closer, she notes, to the Hebrew Bible than Greek or Latin translations, points out that many early Christian manuscripts of the gospel of St. John open with the words "In the beginning was the Image," rather than "In the beginning was the Word," as is found in the Canon of the New Testament. Hansbury feels the "early Church saw the unity of word and image. And icons are an ideal form of imagery as they are the most symbolic of Christian art forms and lead one more directly and intuitively to God."

Hansbury's icons are in private collections in Europe and the Middle East. Locally, her Mother of God icon may be seen in Seven Dolors Church in Wyndmoor, and her Holy Trinity icon is in the chapel of Our Mother of Consolation.

Other local iconographers with works in the exhibition are Marjorie Anna vonMoschzisker of Chestnut Hill and Sharon Church McNabb of Mt. Airy.

"These icons are foreign to us mortals of the Western world," vonMoschzisker explains, "because their origin is Eastern. In the traditional Catholic Orthodox liturgy, all the human senses play a part," she continues, citing "prayer as chanted by the choir, candlelight flickering through clouds of incense. Even in a lifetime," she muses, "such splendor could not be put into words."

Thus, amid angels and archangels and all the glory of heaven, these glittering gold and jewel-like images just might cause viewers to be sure they have stumbled into a Russian Orthodox cathedral by mistake.

Anyone interested in exploring iconography further may contact Susan vonMedicus through All Saints' at 610-642-4098. An art background is not necessary.

"Hope of Glory," the inaugural exhibition in a series planned by All Saints' Church, Montgomery Avenue at Gypsy Lane, will be on view through Dec. 22. Parish Hall gallery hours are Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. and Sunday morning from 8 a.m. until noon. Directions may be found at www.AllSaintsWynne.org.