Hand-painted Russian icons: the tradition of the icon in Rus'

In the Russian tradition every home has its «beautiful corner», the icon corner, usually facing east, with a lamp burning before the images. There the family prays morning and evening, there those who leave are blessed and those who return are welcomed. Home icons pass from generation to generation and often carry the family's memory on the back.

The most solemn moment is the wedding. Before the ceremony the parents bless the bride and groom with a pair of icons, the Saviour for the groom and the Mother of God, very often Our Lady of Kazan, for the bride: these are the wedding icons, which the new family will take into its home. For a baptism, the icon of the saint whose name the child receives is given.

• ◆Our Lady of Kazan, found in 1579 and linked to the liberation of Moscow in 1612: the most venerated icon of the Russian people.
• ◆The Theotokos of Vladimir, which came from Constantinople in the twelfth century: the model of every icon of Tenderness.
• ◆Andrei Rublev's Trinity, painted for the monastery founded by Saint Sergius of Radonezh: the three angels, guests of Abraham.
• ◆The Saviour of the Fiery Eye, the stern face of Christ born in fourteenth-century Moscow.
• ◆The Holy Face, the Saviour «not made by human hands», among the first icons a Russian iconographer learns to paint.
• ◆Saint Nicholas, the most loved saint in Russia after the Mother of God, invoked by travellers and children.
• ◆The Protection of the Mother of God (Pokrov), celebrated on 1 October (14 October in the civil calendar): Mary spreading her veil over the faithful.

Many Russian icons of past centuries are covered by a riza or oklad, a cover of embossed metal, often gilded silver, leaving only the faces and hands visible. It was a gesture of veneration: the most beloved image was «clothed» as one adorns a loved person. But beneath the riza there was always a fully painted icon.

Concetta Basile's icons are meant to be seen whole: the gold is not an added cover but is laid as leaf on the panel, in the ground, the halos and the highlights, and every garment is painted by hand in egg tempera. It is the same choice as Rublev's great icons, which have come down to us uncovered.

Those who know Russian icons will find in Concetta Basile's panels the words of the ancient workshop: the kovcheg, the recess with a raised border that sets apart the sacred space; the pavoloka, the linen glued to the panel; the levkas, the gesso laid in many coats and sanded by hand; the olifa, the cooked linseed oil varnish that completes the work. All her panels, in linden multi-ply, have the recess and the linen.

Inscriptions are written in Greek or Latin; the monograms of Christ and the Mother of God, IC XC and MP ΘY, are the same that Russian icons received from Byzantium. Like every icon by Concetta Basile, it is fully gilded with 23¾ karat gold, with inscriptions in Greek or Latin, and is commissioned with an offering proportionate to the time and materials of the work.

Here are some of the icons of the Russian tradition painted by Concetta Basile. Every subject can be commissioned in the size you wish.