Glimpses of heaven

More and more Western Christians are discovering ancient Eastern religious art as an aid to prayer and meditation. FELIX CORLEY goes to see a new exhibition of icons at the Royal Academy
CONS WHETHER THEY'RE smoke-blackened and revered in ancient churches or
smuggled out of Orthodox Europe to the chic art salons • , of Amsterdam and Zurich have a strange fascination for the Westerner.
The exhibition which is currently on at the Royal . Academy of Arts in . London's Piccadilly The • Art of Holy Russia: Icons : • from Moscow 1400-1660 brings together 50 icons from the Tretyakov gallery • in Moscow and the muse ' urns of the Kremlin, together with manuscripts collected from a number of Russian libraries.
Far from being obscure, dark and covered in soot, these icons have been brilliantly restored to the original bold colours.
Highlights include two versions of the well-known Trinity icon (though not the most famous by Andrei RubIev) and a small but . exquisite sixteenth-Century _ icon of the Apocalypse, illustrating events from the Revelation of St John.
. The Virgin Mary and the .saints feature prominently, . as does the "Good Thief" shown carrying the true cross. There is also a portable icon-screen, used . for liturgies in private homes or perhaps on the battlefield. . The exhibition brings out the visual side of Russia's _rich heritage. The purpose is also educational: to show how sacred art flourished in a city that was establishing its power over an everwidening empire.
Liberation from centuries of Mongol rule was represented as the triumph of Christian values. Muscovy may have been an autocratic state, but its art was diverse, creative and innovative.
THE TSARS VIEWED Orthodox Christian art as a key support to their ambition to establish Moscow as the "Third Rome", taking the authority of Constantinople which fell to the Turks in 1453.
Drawing on ideas brought in by Italian artists and .-architects commissioned by the Tsars to work on the Moscow Kremlin, Russian Christian art began to fuse Renaissance influences with traditional Russian and Byzantine forms. The Kremlin was at the same time the centre of political and religious power.
But the political use of such sacred art (perhaps overemphasised in this exhi
bition) can obscure its spiritual purpose. Eastern Christianity uses icons as an aid to prayer and worship.
Once described as "opened books to remind us of God", they helped the often illiterate people to a greater understanding of God, Christian doctrine and the saints of the Church. "Icons help Orthodox to look on the saints not as remote and legendary figures from the past," writes Bishop Kallistos, "but as contemporaries and friends." Eastern Christians do not worship the actual icons, but use them to come closer to the people depicted in them.
But some go further. Nicolas Zernov, a Russian who lived most of his life in Britain, wrote that icons are "dynamic manifestations of
man's spiritual power to redeem creation through beauty and art".
The depictions are not meant to be imitations of nature. "The artists aimed to demonstrate that men, animals and plants, and the whole cosmos, could be rescued from their present state of degradation and restored to their proper Image." Because of their beauty and power, icons have grown in popularity among Western Christians who believe that their use can aid and enrich prayer and provide a source of inspiration.
As Catholic churches have been stripped of art over the past decades, some Catholics feel that the Orthodox church has retained a greater faithfulness to earlier traditions of church decoration.
In an Eastern church the faithful are separated from the altar by an icon screen with four or five tiers full of images of God and the saints. God the Father often looks down from the dome of the church. The mysteries of the liturgy are glimpsed through the "royal gates" of the icon-screen just as in life we have only intermittent glimpses of the divine.
The images of God and the saints that surround the worshipper as the liturgy is celebrated in a humble church show the invisible presence of the whole company of heaven.
But icons are not just for church. Before the revolution, homes and even offices would have a "beautiful corner" where the icons would hang, to be venerated by anyone entering the room. Sadly the militant atheism of the new Communist regime saw thousands of churches and perhaps millions of icons destroyed throughout Russia.
Gold and silver were stripped from the churches and icons, piled high in huge bonfires and burnt. Others were confiscated. Many of the icons shown here were acquired by the Tretyakov gallery between 1929 and 1934, when many churches were closed across Russia.
With the end of Communist restrictions on religion, many icons reappeared from attics and cellars to refurbish restored churches.
SADLY, MANY ICONS were also smuggled out of Russia and Eastern Europe. In Istanbul's souk you can pick up icons sometimes hundreds of years old for fifty dollars, bartered by Russian traders.
At the higher end of the smuggled market, icons can cost thousands of pounds. Churches and homes all over Russia have been raided to feed this demand. Accompanying this exhibition is a series of talks to set the art in its historical context and a special concert on 22 April of settings of some texts from the Russian Orthodox liturgy by the Orthodox composer John Tavener. There is also a catalogue with illustrations of every exhibit and background essays explaining the historical setting and the symbolism.
What the icon painters ' would have made of the merchandise on sale including scarves and T shirts inscribed with Biblical texts in Old Slavonic is anyone's guess. But the exhibition itself is well presented in a soothingly dark set of rooms.
Clear and informative descriptions allow those both familiar and unfamiliar with Russian sacred art to understand both the spiritual and visual beauty of Russia's heritage. The immediacy and vigour of these works of art will astonish and inspire.
• The Art of Holy Russia: Icons from Moscow 14001660, Sackler Wing, Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly, London WI, 19 March-I4 June, Entrance ,C5.50 with concessions for students, young people etc. Enquiries: 0171 300 8000.