A BRUSH WITH THE DIVINE
As the season of Epiphany approaches at Turvey Abbey in Bedfordshire, Sister Esther and her students create gilded masterpieces gleaming with heavenly hues
As the season of Epiphany approaches at Turvey Abbey, Sister Esther and her students create gleaming gilded masterpieces
here is a hushed silence in the lofty studio in the shade of Turvey Abbey in Bedfordshire. It is early winter. Outside, the trees are bare and there is a sharp nip in the air. But inside, under the watchful eye of their teacher Sister Esther, students pore over paintings aglow with fiery celestial colours.
They are creating icons, an ancient art form valued as an aid to prayer and reflection and most commonly seen in Catholic, Russian and Greek Orthodox churches. Some students paint Mary and the baby Jesus – it is Christmastide, after all – but you don’t need to be religious to make an icon today. This course, one of several held across the country all year round, is open to anyone with or without a faith. Over the week, students will complete an icon the size of an A4 piece of paper, producing a precious work of art but also enjoying a respite from the hurly-burly of their secular lives.
DRAWING ON DIVINITY
Sister Esther, a nun at the Priory of Our Lady of Peace, the Benedictine community that lives at this 17thcentury abbey, has been creating icons for more than 20 years. She grew up in Lewes, East Sussex, and knew she wanted to be a nun in her teens, joining the order at just 21. But it was a visit to the Byzantine chapel at the Order’s Mother House in Belgium that drew her to icons. “I had a tingling sensation in my hands,” she says. “I felt called to paint them.” Training at the Mother Church in Belgium, and then on courses in the UK, equipped her to follow her calling, although it was 15 years before her Order allowed her to teach the ancient art. ‘Writing icons’, as it is known, involves exacting techniques. “To master the art, you have to draw, draw, draw,” Sister Esther says. “You need to study the Roman alphabet [the Latin source of our alphabet] and learn calligraphy.” Sister Esther has created dozens of icons, and many hang at Turvey Abbey, their dazzling hues of blues, reds and burnished gold shining out against the ancient walls. She is particularly fond of drawing St Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of the environment, because of his connection to nature and animals. But many biblical figures or scenes or saints make fitting subjects. Her intricate pieces depict everything from John the Baptist to Jesus feeding the five thousand.
GILTY PLEASURES
One student, returning for a second time, is creating an icon of Mary, Joseph and Jesus. Kay-ee Chan lives in Milton Keynes, but is Hong Kong Chinese, explaining her love of calligraphy. “At home, you are immersed in it from childhood,” she says. Kay-ee appreciates the stillness of the work in contrast to her hectic life at home. “It’s a pause, a chance to be mindful, but it is [also] so much more. I feel connected to something infinite, drawing on a reservoir of wisdom and energy. Painting in silence is comforting.”
The studious or religious might opt for certain colours for their symbolic meanings. Blue is the colour given to the Virgin Mary, yellow indicates light and purity, red is the colour of martyrs, charity and the joy of life, while white and gold symbolise the brightness of day.
It’s fine to make mistakes as a beginner. “It all requires patience,” says Sister Esther, quoting the iconographer’s prayer recited by students
“To master the art of icon painting, you have to draw, draw, draw. You need to study the Roman alphabet and learn calligraphy”