The Art of Iconography

Yvette Abdallah CCAS'07.    Photo by Christopher Abdallah.

By Shannon Rossman Allen

As a young girl, Yvette Abdallah CCAS'07 dreamed of being a detective. Watching such television classics as Matlock and Columbo, she was drawn to the job's attention to detail. "I have a photographic memory, which lends itself to this profession," Yvette says. "And I've always been intrigued by detail—textures, colors, how light reflects off a surface."

But fate had something else in store for this young woman. At 14, Yvette received a scholarship from her church, the Orthodox Church of the Holy Cross in Medford, to enroll in Russian iconography classes taught by master iconographer Vladislav Andrejev. "At the time, I saw it as a religious art and something I was being forced to do," she remembers. "Little did I know it would lead me to a fulfilling career as an artist."

A prominent spiritual art form in the Christian Orthodox religion, iconography is a branch of art history that studies the interpretation of biblical identification, descriptions, and content through "image writing," or "painting" an icon of a saint or biblical event. The icon creation follows several meticulous artistic steps that require great attention to detail, including tracing the icon, etching it, painting seven layers, burnishing it with a stone, guilding, gold-leaf application, and varnishing the final piece. This artistic immersion and the time involved in creating just one icon, which can take many months, allows the artist to strive for a higher artistic level through introspection, prayer, Bible studies, and church teachings to make a personal, spiritual connection with the icon.

Artistically inclined as a child, Yvette was soon drawn to this art that was, basically, thrust upon her. "It's not a 'traditional' form of fine art," she says. "Because God created the world from nothing, no synthetic or manmade materials are used when creating the icon. Colors are made by grinding stones that look quite ordinary, but are actually colored inside," she says. "It's a very 'green' art form."

Iconography by Yvette Abdallah representing    the sacrament of marriage, depicting the    figures of Saints Joachim and Anna (the    parents of the Virgin Mary) embracing.

Each artist's icon is different, in that it is created in his or her state of self reflection, while being liturgically correct according to church teachings. "It is ultimately created in how you, the artist, perceive it," she adds.

After three years of classes, Yvette's iconography led her to Rutgers–Camden. Home-schooled through high school, she experienced her first formal art course with Jeffrey Filbert, currently a part-time lecturer in the fine arts department. "I remember telling Professor Filbert I wanted to learn cross-hatching," she says. "At the next class, he told us [the students] he would 'take requests' and teach techniques that weren't on the syllabus."

As she pursued her studies, Yvette found other professors to be just as willing to teach the artist in her. "I feel like I got 10 years of classroom experience while at Rutgers," she says.

Armed with a B.A. in fine arts with a concentration in computer animation and a minor in film studies, Yvette continues to study iconography, has started her own jewelry business, and is working for a professor at Drexel University creating medical animations that show the cause and effect of different ailments. She also plans to return to Rutgers to pursue studies in web and graphic design to make her a more marketable artist and follow her dream: a career in animation with Disney and Pixar. "This would incorporate everything I've learned artistically and allow me to truly soar as an artist."