Furthermore…

I watched a program about church icon paintings on EWTN.  They are big in the Greek and Russian churches. The lecturer pointed out that icons differ from regular portraits in that they start with dark flesh tones and then continually brightens them, so that they seem to glow with internal light rather than having external light falling on them, along with the resultant shadow effects. He said regular portrait work starts with medium flesh tones and then either lightens or darkens as needs dictate.  He also mentioned that they have “reverse perspective”, putting the vanishing point out in front of the image and thus not showing depth normally, so that the closer edge of say, a table, is truncated rather than extended in comparison to the rear edge. This gives the pictures a spiritual appearance  that reminds the viewers that they do not represent everyday reality. Also contributing to  the spiritual air is the heavy use of gold, and a greatly reduced illusion of depth, so that things seem to be crowded in upon one another.