WHY THE ORTHODOX ICON so different from the religious paintings Catholics.
The decisions of the VII Ecumenical Council 787, states that artists should strictly follow the icon painters iconographic canons for writing the image. This is explained by the fact that the icon was given the status of holders and custodians of the church historical tradition. Therefore, violation of iconographic canon was fraught with its distortion, that is, falling into heresy, and severely punished.

The notion of the canon includes the canon of proportions, color and compositional canons. With their help, rather rigidly fixed in the minds of the symbolic value of icons, which frees the artist from the need to develop and focused his creative energy on the artistic form of expression.

The Church is not allowed to paint icons on the imagination of the artist or from a live model, as it would mean a conscious and complete detachment from the prototype. Name written on the icon, no longer correspond to the represented person and it would be obvious lies. "The icons should be written on the substance and image, rather than on guesswork and samomyshleniyu.

"As if alive" on the icons can not write more because the saints are in the other world, in eternity, and not live terrestrial mortal life, measurable time. This explains why icons are not quite appropriate to call paintings.

In the name of the inviolability of sacred tradition in its visual presentation were created and transferred from the workshop to the workshop so-called icon-painting originals - samples, standards, from which very often recreated images.

The collection of all canonical icons was intended to be a full orthodox doctrine. "If you come to the heathen, saying:" Show me your faith, "then otvedesh him to church and put the different kinds of holy images."

Decision VII Ecumenical Council were addressed to the whole Christian world. But the Frankish King Charles (the future Emperor Charles the Great), aspirant political and territorial consolidation and expansion of its power, no decision of this cathedral, which was a continuation and consequence of standoff East.

In response to the decision of the cathedral on the initiative of Charlemagne in 790 -794 years. were drawn so-called Carolingian book, which proclaimed that the icons can not be equated with con-schennomu Scripture and its meaning does not even comparable to him. They can be created and used only as decoration of churches, for inspiring the faithful and for educational purposes, in accordance with the canonization of the iconography of the images are not recognized to date.

Thus, in the Western Church iconographic schemes was not, and artists of Western Europe were largely free to give their artistic interpretation of the Old Testament and Christian subjects. Gradually, this religious painting all further away from the actual icons and create what is called the paintings on religious themes. Were discovered linear perspective, ways of image motion and transfer properties of air and much more. From religious painting in Western Europe later branched off, got stronger and has acquired an independent life secular art, gradually ousting the religious art in the background.

In Byzantium, and in other Orthodox countries, the situation in the visual arts has developed quite different. Set canonized iconographic principles and tenets of the Orthodox faith formed a system of rigid guidelines (a "coordinate system"), reliably indicate the man the only true way to the sea of life. And icon painters did not need a search for new means of representation - appropriate ways to create images of faith have already been given, tested, and the legacy of their fathers.