9 Comments
User's avatar
Dominic Cudmore's avatar

You might also be interested in 'Les Saintes Icônes' by frère Ephrem Yon OSB, a work with which I was associated in France in the late 80s: https://www.amazon.com/saintes-ico%CC%82nes-French-Ephrem-Yon/dp/2904057544

David Clayton's avatar

Thank you for the suggestion Dominic

IJ Makan's avatar

Thanks for writing, David. It's helpful for Catholics and Catholic artists to understand that liturgical art is not simply Byzantine-styled icons

David Clayton's avatar

Pleasure IJ. Yes, this is precisely why I started to research the history of this, because I wasn't sure how Roman Catholics should approach iconography and what they should make of their own heritage.

Mike Rizzio's avatar

I'm so glad I found you in Substack. I appreciated your work in Blogger, way back when...

SlowlyReading's avatar

Thank you. I'm curious where the Libri Carolini come into this. Did they move the West in a different, less iconic direction?

David Clayton's avatar

I don't know much about those books, but I would say that Carolingian art did conform to the iconographic prototype too and I'm not aware any strains that didn't - I just added to the list of other Western forms of iconography now, prompted by your question. Having said this is a general picture, and it is always possible that individual artists or some groups of artists chose to do something different. I will just say that I don't know of them. Do feel free to show me any that you feel might be at variance.

David Clayton's avatar

Not that I'm aware (although I don't know much about them, I will admit). Carolingian art was, to my knowledge fully iconographic. It wasn't until the Gothic that Christian art even in the West deviated from the iconographic prototype,