Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

The style used in the creation of icons is designed to inspire spirituality. It adopts a simplified or abstracted approach to the presentation of the human figure, rather than an explicitly naturalistic style. Icons are meant to evoke the essence of the holy person, rather than to imitate their external form. Standardization of icon formats furthers this aim by directing the focus onto the object of devotion rather than on the skill of an individual artist.

Although the Byzantine Empire ended in the fifteenth century, the Byzantine icon style continued in countries where Eastern Orthodox Christianity flourished. Later icons, such as this image of two saints, are very similar to earlier examples.