Volto Santo
Choosing a calendar for the new year is always something I find exciting, mostly for the pictures of course. The beginning of this year I was lucky enough to find a calendar of Russian Icons. We've been enjoying it all year. The icon for May is called "Volto Santo". I don't know what Volto means but I can guess that "Santo" means either saint or holy. Anyone know for sure? I think this is an icon of St. Veronica's handkerchief. At the beginning of the month I didn't really like the icon that much, just for aesthetic reasons. Now here it is, near the end of May, and I really like this icon. I'll be sad to have to turn the page. I don't know why but it really grew on me to see the face of Christ on a frequent basis. I think I'm going to have to tear that page out and hang it up somewhere else in the house.
Comments
Makes some sense to me as I have seen an icon much like this called The Holy Face, also called, - I think - The Icon Not Made With Hands.
Not speaking from definite knowledge, just an undereducated guess.
The icon “made without hands” or “the icon of the Lord on the cloth” (“mandilion”), known in the West under the name of the “Holy Visage,” occupies the central place among the images of Christ. The expression “made without hands” receives its true meaning in the scriptural context (Mark 14:58): the image “made without hands” is above all the incarnate Word, which “showed” Itself in “the temple of his body” (John 2:21). From that time on the Mosaic Law that forbade images (Ex. 20:4) had no more meaning and the icons of Christ become irrefutable witnesses of the Incarnation of God. Instead of creating according to their own inclination “with their hands” the image of the God-Man, iconographers must follow a tradition that attaches them to the original “made without hands.” This tradition acquired, at the start of the 5th century, a legendary form:
In the time that our Lord was preaching the Gospel and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people, there was in the city of Edessa, on the banks of the Euphrates, a certain Prince Avgar, who was riddled with leprosy. He heard of Christ, the Healer of every pain and sickness, and sent a portrait-painter, Ananias, to Palestine with a letter to Christ, in which he begged the Lord to come to Edessa and heal him of his leprosy. In the event of the Lord’s not being able to come, the prince commanded Ananias to paint His likeness and bring it, believing that the portrait would heal him. The Lord replied that he could not come, as the time of His Passion was at hand, and He took a napkin and wiped His face, leaving a perfect reproduction of His most pure face on the napkin. The Lord gave this napkin to Ananias, with a message to say that the prince would be healed by it, but not entirely, and He would therefore send him later an envoy who would rid him of the remainder of the disease. Receiving the napkin, Avgar kissed it and the leprosy fell from his body, with just a little remaining on his face. Later, the Apostle Thaddaeus, preaching the Gospel, came to Avgar, healed him secretly and baptized him. Then the prince smashed the idols that stood at the city’s gateway and placed the napkin with the face of Christ above the entrance, stuck onto wood, surrounded with a gold frame and ornamented with pearls. The prince also wrote above the icon on the gateway: “O Christ our God, no one who hopes in Thee will be put to shame.” Later, one of Avgar’s great-grandsons restored idolatry, and the Bishop of Edessa came by night and walled in the icon above the gateway.
Centuries passed. In the time of the Emperor Justinian, the Persian King, Chozroes, attacked Edessa, and the city was in great affliction. The Bishop of Edessa, Eulabius, had a vision of the most holy Mother of God, who revealed to him the secret of the icon, walled in and forgotten. The icon was found, and by its power the Persian army was defeated. —The Prologue
This first image of Christ was a direct and, so to speak, material testimony of the Incarnation of the Word. The legend expresses a dogmatic truth: Christian iconography—and above all the possibility of representing Christ—has its foundation in the fact of the Incarnation. In consequence, the sacred art of icons cannot be an arbitrary creation of artists: just as the theologian expresses by means of thought, so must the iconographer express by his art the living Truth, “made without hands,” the Revelation that the Church possesses in her Tradition. Better than any other sacred image, the “made without hands” icon of Christ expresses the dogmatic principle of iconography. That is why the 8th Council (787) gave it special attention, and, to commemorate the definitive triumph of the holy images, it is this icon of Christ that is venerated at the feast of Orthodoxy.
The iconographic type of the Saviour “made without hands” shows us only the face of Christ, with neither neck nor shoulders, framed in long hair, which falls in locks on either side. The beard is sometimes single, ending in a point, sometimes forked. The regular features of the visage are rendered schematically: the beautiful line of the mouth has nothing of the carnal; the elongated and very straight nose forms, with the arched eyebrows, a pattern that recalls a palm tree. The grave and impassive expression of this visage of the God-Man has nothing in common with the impassiveness of indifference towards the human world that one finds so often expressed in effigies created by the religious art of the Far East. Here, it is the impassivity of an absolutely pure human nature, which excludes sin, but remains open to all the sorrows of the fallen world. The large dilated eyes, turned towards the onlooker, have an attentive and saddened look which seems to penetrate to the depths of consciences, without overwhelming them: Christ is come into the world not to condemn, but to save it (John 3:17). In the nimbus that surrounds the head of Christ is inscribed the sign of the Cross. This cruciferous nimbus will be found on all the representations of Christ. The Greek letters on the three branches of the Cross form the Divine Name revealed to Moses: THE BEING (Exod. 3:14), the Name belonging to the Divine nature of Christ. The abridged name of Jesus Christ, IC XC, designates the hypostasis [Person] of the incarnate Son. It is obligatory for inscriptions of the Name to appear on all icons of Christ, as also those of the Mother of God and of all the saints.
Icons of the Saviour “made without hands” must already have been numerous at Byzantium from the beginning of the 6th century, and they became so above all after the translation of the Edessa icon to Constantinople (in 944). Nevertheless, the best icons of this type that we possess today are due to Russian iconographic art. One of the most ancient is the icon of the Cathedral of the Dormition at Moscow (12th century), painted in the monumental manner which recalls that of frescoes. — The Prologue; Ouspensky & Lossky
I once bought a similar calendar, which are Italian reproductions of Russian icons. Not sure the connection, but they are commonly found - usually in 'alternative spirituality' shops.