Icon Painting
Because these images are objects of veneration, canon governs proportion and placement and correctness outranks originality, in Tibet, Russia and Ethiopia alike.
Dictionary entry
- Thangka 11th century– / Style
Tibetan Buddhist scroll paintings render deities and mandalas under strict iconometric rule. Vivid mineral pigment and gold line make them maps for meditation, and because they roll up for travel they sustained a nomadic life of faith.
- Russian Icon 10th–17th century / continuing / Style
The icon tradition inherited from Byzantium uses reverse perspective, gold grounds and stylized bodies so that the panel becomes a window for prayer rather than a picture to look at. Rublev's Trinity marks its spiritual summit.
- Ethiopian Icon 14th century– / Style
Large almond eyes, heavy outlines and vivid flat color give the sacred painting of Ethiopian Orthodoxy its own manner. The Byzantine inheritance is rewritten there in an African sense of form.