On the perils of folk art

[colliemommie]

I started work on that Crosstitch icon I asked for advice about a few weeks ago. I did decide to go with what everyone suggested and do the tone on tone background. I was starting to choose colors for the rest of the icon, which is less fun and more complicated than I had hoped.

Part of the problem is that I only have so much latitude. Icons follow some pretty rigid rules, although there's not always agreement on what those rules are. Western paintings of saints used to rely heavily on attributes, or items a saint would hold or be otherwise pictured with, to help viewers identify who the saint was. While icons do that to some extent, it is mostly in cases where there is one figure only. For icons with more than one figure clothing colors play an important part in differentiating.

For example, Mary always wears a blue tunic or dress with a red overmantle. At least in Ukrainian icons. In Greek Byzantine or Ruthenian icons she is sometime shown in a red tunic with a royal purple overmantle. Though, in my observation, that tends to be in icons depicting events taking place out of time. For lifetime events she wears red and blue; for mystical events where she is Queen of Heaven it can be red and purple.

Similarly, Jesus nearly always wears a blue or green tunic with a red mantle. Green seems to be more common with Ukrainian icons, and blue with Ruthenian. The resurrected Jesus, and sometimes the boy Jesus, where white. Transfiguration Jesus also wears white.

From switching back and forth due to the availability of churches, I am not always 100% on who wears what in what rite. Plus the pattern I am working from does not have a stated color key.

Long story short, St. Joseph was causing me problems. The picture really looks like he is wearing a red tunic with a green mantle, but those are Jesus colors in Ukrainian iconography. And picture searches on the web aren't much help because one doesn't always know what specific tradition an icon is from. Saying an icon is "orthodox" is completely useless for identification.

I finally gave up and called Father Walter at church. Apparently there are no hard and fast rules for what St. Joseph wears, because he is almost always shown with either Jesus or Mary to give him context. On the rare occasions he is shown by himself, he has his attributes of two doves or a white lily. So since it's pretty obvious this is an icon of the holy family, we are going to go with a brown tunic and a green mantle.

It was a little funny how vehemently he told me not to use red for Joseph's tunic though.

TL;DR: Religions have lots of funny rules. Even about needlework.

Comments

[noodledays.livejournal.com]

ha, they really do. I'm glad Father Walter was able to steer you at least away from trouble. ;)

[colliemommie.livejournal.com]

Why are there two Jesuses in this icon????Boy Jesus and grown up Jesus are both here!!! Heresy!!! Blasphemy!!! BUUURRRNNNN the stitch witch!!!!!

(Actually we're a pretty burn-free sect. They'd be more likely to present arguments in the form of a geometric proof, or find a letter written by John Chrysostrom in 400 CE to show me.)

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

That's absolutely fascinating. I've heard of a lot of reasons why people choose to change thread colors on a cross-stitch pattern, but never that one before.

[colliemommie.livejournal.com]

"I alter patterns to avoid theological confusion" you mean? I'm such a special snowflake! ;-)

To me, it looks like the robes on Joseph are different than Mary's, but it's hard to be 100 percent sure with a colored pencil shaded chart. These patterns were done by hand originally, so there is variation. I was also concerned that if I did brown with green over it he'd end up being John the Baptist instead. But apparently that's not a problem because his brown shirt is camels hair and shaggy. (To quote Anna Russell: I'm not making this up, you know.)

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Please don't take this the wrong way, but ROFLASTC!

[colliemommie.livejournal.com]

Oh, it gets better. The camel/hide shirt is in the majority of icons, (sometimes just draped over a shoulder as his only clothing, woo-hoo) but even when John the Baptist is more formally dressed, his hair is always "unkempt".

I won't even get into all the times he's shown with wings (symbolizing his prophethood), and/or holding his own decapitated head. In addition to having a head on his shoulders, of course, not instead of.

Maybe John the Baptist icons need their own post. There's even one of the baby Baptist with his mother St. Elizabeth. He's wearing a little baby shaggy hide tunic, naturlich.

[filkferengi]

Maybe his mom had been reading him _Where The Wild Things Are_?

;)