The encaustic icon of Christ Pantocrator at Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula is often remembered as being the oldest surviving depiction of Christ Pantocrator. Yet almost as striking, perhaps, are the subtle but highly recognizable differences between the left and right sides of the photograph. Jesus’ hair color, eyebrows, eyes, nose, cheeks, beard, neck, and hands would fail to represent mirror images of one another if the image were folded vertically. There are several possible explanations for the discrepancy. Manolis Chatzidakis and Gerry Walters have speculated that either the artist was attempting to convey movement, or he was attempting portray a single source of light on the left side of the image. However, this paper seeks to reinforce the most generally-accepted explanation for the discrepancies: the duality of the photo is intentional, and it symbolizes the divine and human sides of Christ.
The icon, which stands nearly three feet tall, was created with exquisite attention to detail. Yet it is almost as though two separate artists were tasked with creating it. Jesus’s hair is a richer, darker brown color on the left side of the image. There are undertones of gray on the right, and it appears longer in length, like it has been pulled to that side. Similarly, Jesus’ left eyebrow and eye are clear and benevolent. There is a significant amount of white exposed around the pupils, and the brow is shaped like a tadpole. On the right side of the image, however, Jesus’s brow is arched and ungroomed, conveying a sort of mischief. The eye itself is significantly darker, as well. The whites of his eyes are not as exposed, and the whites have a gray undertone. There is also a thicker black ring around the iris.
Continuing to descend along Jesus’s face, another clear difference is the severe shading on the right side Jesus’s nose and cheek. His lips also appear slightly darker on the right side of the image, and there appears to be a wrinkle running from his nose to his beard. His neck is fuller and more rounded on the left side of the image, but the folds of his garment may be covering part of the right. The final distinction is the size of Jesus’s hands, and the actions they are performing. His left hand — below the benevolent eye and rich, brown hair — is large and making the symbol of a blessing. His right hand is significantly smaller and more childlike than the left, and it is clutching a Bible.
The photo on the following page shows two composite images, both modified using Photoshop to highlight how disparate the sides of the icon are. The image on the left shows what the left side of the icon would look like if it were symmetrical. The right side of the image does the same. Though the source is not an academic one, and therefore it can’t be vetted for 100 percent accuracy, it manages to convey the primary differences in a way words cannot.
Though originally dated to the thirteenth century by Georgios and Maria Sotiriou in 1956, a joint expedition of scholars from the Universities of Michigan, Princeton, and Alexandria have since dated the icon to the first half of the sixth century. The icon was cleaned by Tassos Margaritoff in 1962, which gave the joint expedition insight Georgios and Maria Sotiriou did not possess. Kurt Weitzmann, whose book The Monastery at Saint Catherine: The Icons catalogs the work of the expedition, explains:
Before the cleaning of the icon … the mantle of Christ was painted blue and was rendered in thick, soft folds lacking any distinguishing stylistic features. The gold nimbus had a brown varnish, the background was greyish green, and the inscription in the spandrels read IC XC in large red letters. … The thirteenth-century dating by the Sotirious can only be understood as an attempted compromise between the old and the new features of the icon.
Weitzmann wrote that when the icon had been restored to its original glory, it was of such “exceptionally high quality” that “only Constantinople could have produced it.” Since the monastery was founded by Justinian, Weitzmann and his team speculate that the icon may have been a gift from the emperor himself. After all, he writes, “surely [Justinian] would have sent gifts” to a monastery he created.
The icon was created using the encaustic technique. According to the Encaustic Art Institute, the word derives from the Greek enkaustikos, which means “to heat or burn in.” An article published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art adds that there are actually three types of encaustic techniques, but they are so specialized that the general term “encaustic” tends to be favored throughout history:
The explanations given of the ancient wax painting are almost inextricably confused and contradictory. There appears to have been three distinct methods. … Of the art of using colors prepared with wax, and of fixing pictures so executed by the aid of fire, the application of the term “encaustic,” which strictly means “burning in,” is scarcely sufficiently descriptive. Yet, in whatever operations wax was subjected to the action of heat, the process appears to have been considered by the ancients a species of encaustic.
For the purpose of this article, we will continue to use the general term “encaustic” to describe the icon. Whether the tints were blended with a heated metal instrument or a brush makes little difference in determining the reason for Christ’s distinct features.
Though we needn’t know all the details of encaustic painting in order to determine the true intentions behind the icon, we must consider exactly what an icon is. The word comes from the Greek “eikon,” which, according to Margaret E. Kenna, can be translated as “image, picture, portrait, representation.” Kenna continues: “In certain contexts the word refers particularly to pictures of holy persons and events, and these ayies eikones, holy pictures, are regarded by members of the Orthodox Cristian Church as sacramental.” The Christ Pantocrator at the Sinai Peninsula is certainly an example of a religious icon, or “holy picture.”
The words “Christ Pantocrator” translate to “Christ Ruler Over All,” and that is the emotion the icon intends to convey. According to Solrunn Nes’s The Mystical Language of Icons, the pantocrator image typically depicts an “authoritative” Jesus who is “looking directly at us.” Nes adds that “characteristics such as frontality and eye contact emphasize the I-thou relationship,” and are often a distinguishing feature of the pantocrator icon. These characteristics must be considered when analyzing the intentions of the artist.
It is certainly possible that the artist was defying the conventions of the day, and opted to convey the Christ Pantocrator from an angle. Chatzidakis and Walters speculate in a 1967 article of The Art Bulletin that the artist may have been trying to indicate “a slight turn to the right” with the asymmetrical image. The piece of evidence that most strongly supports this argument is how Jesus’s hair is more visible on the right side of the icon than the left, as though we are looking at Christ from the side. However, Chatzidakis and Walters quickly disprove their own speculation by noting that “the inner corner of the left eye is precisely as far from the root of the nose as the right, as if the face were rigidly frontal.”
Chatzidakis and Walters also note that there is something beyond mere perspective that differentiates the two sides of the image. The right and left eyes look as though they belong to different people and possess two different different emotions. A mere perspective shift is unlikely to create such disparate features, so the evidence against this explanation is strong. Christ Pantocrator icons are typically oriented directly at the viewer, and the differences between the right and left sides are too distinct to merely indicate a slight rotation in Jesus’s orientation. It is unlikely that the asymmetry of the image is the result of the artist’s failed attempt to experiment with movement and perspective.
Chatzidakis and Walters also explore the possibility that the artist was attempting to convey a single source of light on the top, left side of the image, since this could explain some of the severe shadows on the right side. Looking at the image, this is a more compelling argument than the first. The right side of the image is unquestionably darker than the left. Jesus’ cheek, in particular, possesses severe shading that could be the result of the placement of light. However, this argument also fails to explain why so many of Jesus’s features do not match one another. Having a light shining to one’s top left does not make the right side of his body change, developing lighter hair, a wicked eyebrow, a darker eye, or a miniature hand.
Furthermore, according to Nes, another key characteristic of the Christ Pantocrator icon is that it is illuminated by an “uncreated light” symbolizing God’s “uncreated” status. Similar to how God has no creator, there often is no single source of light in a pantocrator icon; the image is seemingly lit internally. Nes writes: “The uncreated light stands in contrast to the created light, for example sunlight, lamplight or candlelight, which all have the quality of lighting an object, which again casts a shadow.” Though it possible that the artist was deviating from the standard, it also seems unusual that so skilled an artist would struggle with depicting light if he chose to do so. The contrasting features on the right and left side of the icon, as well as the departure from the norm of utilizing “uncreated light,” suggest that the distinctions within the Christ Pantocrator icon at Saint Catherine’s monastery aren’t the result of a failed attempt to show a single light source from the top left of the image.
The generally agreed-upon explanation is that the drastically different sides of the Christ Pantocrator icon at Saint Catherine’s monastery aren’t part of a misguided attempt to portray movement or a single source of light. Rather, the distinctions are intentional and intended to convey the duality of Christ. The left side of the icon — with its rich hair, benign eye, bright features, and blessing hand — represents Christ’s divinity. The left side of the icon, with its greying hair, wicked eye, sunken cheek, and miniature hand holding a Bible, represents Christ’s humanity. The hands and eyes may be the most significant differences.
If the eyes are the window to the soul, the eyes in the icon seem to represent two different souls. This is a difference that no amount of movement or lighting would create. It seems more likely that the artist intended to convey two different “souls” within the same figure — God’s and man’s. The other significant difference is Jesus’s hands. His left is strong, capable, and performing a blessing, while is right is almost childish in comparison and holding a Bible. Christianity teaches that we are all God’s children, and presumably only humans need to read the Bible. The fact that Jesus’s right, childish hand holding a distinctively human item seems to lend credence to the theory that the right side represents his humanity.
In his book Exploring Church History, Derek Cooper takes the crucial step of putting the icon in its historical context. In the fourth and fifth centuries, Christianity was still embroiled in turmoil over Christ’s true nature. Cooper explains:
Some Christians believed that Jesus was a man adopted by God the father at his baptism. Others argued that Christ was a divine being whose body only appeared human. Still others suggested that Jesus’ humanity and divinity merged together in full, or, contrariwise, that they existed separately in his body like a husband and a wife living in the same household but never coming together.
These disagreements eventually led to the proclamations of the Nicene Creed. However, those who believed that Christ was fully divine and fully human still lacked any “standard interpretation” for how to depict the mystery in art. “In many ways, the Christ Pantocrator icons are the triumph of Byzantine Christianity and the celebration of Christ’s dual (human and divine) nature son one body or person,” Cooper continues. “Together, the two sides of his face hold in tension … the dual natures of Christ the almighty.”
When one analyzes all of the evidence, it seems unlikely that a slight turn of perspective or attempt to convey a single source of light is responsible for the drastic differences in the right and left sides of the Christ Pantocrator icon at Saint Catherine’s monastery. Rather, the generally accepted belief that the duality of the images is meant to portray the duality of Christ is more likely for several reasons. First, one’s physical features do not change due to a change in perspective or a single source of light. Furthermore, pantocrator icons are typically represented looking directly at the viewer, and are illuminated by an internal “uncreated light,” making these explanations even less likely. Instead, the features seem so distinct that they can only belong to two different beings — in this case, God and man. Especially when one analyzes the icon in its historical context, it makes far more sense that the differences convey the dual natures of Christ.
Works Cited
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