Publisher's description:
An icon (from the Greek word eikon, "image") is a wooden panel painting of a holy person or scene from Orthodox Christianity, the religion of the Byzantine Empire that is practiced today mainly in Greece and Russia. It was believed that these works acted as intermediaries between worshipers and the holy personages they depicted. Their pictorial language is stylized and primarily symbolic, rather than literal and narrative. Indeed, every attitude, pose, and color depicted in an icon has a precise meaning, and their painters—usually monks—followed prescribed models from iconographic manuals.
The goal of this book is to catalogue the vast heritage of images according to iconographic type and subject, from the most ancient at the Monastery of Saint Catherine in the Sinai to those from Greece, Constantinople, and Russia. Chapters focus on the role of icons in the Orthodox liturgy and on common iconic subjects, including the fathers and saints of the Eastern Church and the life of Jesus and his followers. As with other volumes in the Guide to Imagery series, this book includes a wealth of color illustrations in which details are called out for discussion.

Contents:
page 6 Introduction
9 The Iconostasis and the Orthodox Calendar
43 The Old Testament
93 Gospel Episodes and Church Feasts
163 The Mother of God
225 Christ the Savior
257 Apostles and Martyrs
301 Fathers of the Eastern Church
321 Monastic Saints of the East
343 Russian Saints
Appendixes
378 Index of Subjects
380 Glossary
383 Bibliography