What An Icon And Prayer Can Do
For an icon painter such as the famous contemporary icon painter Aurel Nane, prayer is the continuous work of the spirit. Even though he did not say it with these words, the ‘sparkle of the spirit’ may be seen through all his icons.
His career started out as a try-out of the family artistic education he absorbed over the years. The icons kept dreaming him as divine inspiration. He spends hours and hours of work and inner concentration over the dream that will spread out on wood the colors of the spirit!
Each piece of wood is talking to him and this is the painter’s daily prayer. Wandering the Romanian villages, he comes upon the right place and people for collecting each treasure of old wood. Then the dialogue starts within for creating a new icon. The wood is telling him which saint or religious scene will appear on it, as the beginning of the flowing contact with the higher divine energy that will guide him in his work. The inner feelings and energies are coming in clear and fresh waves and the entire process is like a ceremony for him. The intensive focus on the theme of the icon is giving him ideas for color nuances and new methods of approaching the painting.
In his working room one experiences the chemical smells and paints, the tools and brushes, icons at different steps of the process, as well as some of his newly finished icons. For an observer’s eye, it is a painter’s environment and atmosphere. Yet the mystical process of the icon comes from inside.
There are many icon painters in Romania. Aurel Nane’s mother is one of them. The distinctive touch of the icon spirit arrives with real life at the everyday level. Maybe that is the explanation of his house full of beautiful and dynamic children, his wife a cheerful and lively companion, his friends, relatives or neighbors welcome, all of them as vivid images of the idea of an icon. From the peace of his working room, Aurel Nane makes his mission in the world through the strength of a little community. By the way, his little house is right next to a monastery, of which there are over one thousand in Romania!
We offer for you a short collection of traditional Romanian prayers for spiritual life in the spirit of the icons. Some are abbreviated for the western mind.
- Strephon Kaplan-Williams -
