Ethiopian Icon

エチオピアのイコン / 14th century– / Style / Icon Painting

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.

Ethiopian Icon — Triptych icon of the Virgin — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Triptych icon of the Virgin — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Ethiopian Icon — Fan-shaped processional icon (Walters Art Museum) — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Fan-shaped processional icon (Walters Art Museum) — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Ethiopian Icon — Virgin and Child in the church of Debre Sina (Lalibela, Ethiopia) — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0 · © A. Davey from Where I Live Now: Pacific Northwest — Virgin and Child in the church of Debre Sina (Lalibela, Ethiopia) — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0 · CC BY 2.0 · © A. Davey from Where I Live Now: Pacific Northwest

At a glance

Visual cues

Large almond-shaped eyes
Bold outlines
Vivid flat color
Folding triptychs

Best used for

Sacred narrative that must read through flat color and outline alone
Making a small folding altar that works as a painting

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Dictionary entry

Type: Keep inscriptions inside the frame and treat letters as part of the image
Composition: Line figures up frontally and divide the ground into flat color fields
Material: Dense pigment laid flat on panel or parchment, outlined in heavy black
Caution: Extracting the large eyes as a style breaks the balance of heavy outline and flat color, and the result becomes cartoon caricature.
Further study: the Gunda Gunde school / healing scrolls / continuity into modern Ethiopian painting

Related entries

Russian Icon (ロシア・イコン)Same Icon Painting lineage.Compare Ethiopian Icon and Russian Icon
Persian Miniature (ペルシア細密画)Editorially linked for a useful contrast.Compare Ethiopian Icon and Persian Miniature

Cite this entry

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Link: https://indexstyle.org/styles/ethiopian-icon
Markdown: [Ethiopian Icon — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/ethiopian-icon)
HTML: <a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/ethiopian-icon">Ethiopian Icon — IndexStyle</a>

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