Marie-Hélène and Yves Coutable: “Writing icons is a real spiritual battle”

The Cross: You both turned to orthodoxy. When and why did you take this step?

Yves Coutable: We became Orthodox in 1998. I was Roman Catholic but had not practiced for a long time.

Marie-Hélène Coutable: I was also Catholic, but I had been disappointed by certain attitudes or certain answers to my questions. So we had moved away from the Church. At one point, we felt the need to find meaning in our lives, and we looked in Buddhism, in India, we read a lot… One day, someone told us about a priest orthodox. We read some of his books, followed his lectures, and his teaching was an extraordinary discovery for us at the time. Then, during an internship, we were directed to another priest, a teacher from the Dumitru-Staniloae Institute of Orthodox Theology, who is still our spiritual father today. He invited us to the Sunday liturgy he was presiding over, and we knew immediately we were in the right place.

What touched you?

M.-H. C. : The songs, the mystical character of the celebration, the fervor of those present. In the Orthodox liturgy, we feel that God is there, that the saints are there, that the Mother of God is there. Our spiritual father accompanied us, explaining what we did not understand in the liturgy, in the foundations of theology… We were starting from scratch.

How and why did you get into writing icons?

M.-H. C. : We went one day to the Saint-Hilaire-et-Saint-Jean-Damascene monastery in Uchon, in Burgundy. We were struck by the frescoes that can be seen there. We contacted Atelier Saint-Jean-Damascene. Father Nicolas Garrigou, at the time, advised us to start with the icons.

Y. C. : The icon allows you to learn the symbolism of faces, clothing, colors… It requires a whole learning process: you start with a face of Christ, from the front then three-quarter view, you learn to paint the hands and the feet… We first apply the darkest shades, then we go up in light until the last touches of white. We thus move from the earth to the light. We use mineral or plant pigments as well as egg yolk. There is a lot to learn.

M.-H. C. : We also benefit from theological teaching that is inseparable from technology. It is Father Jean-Baptiste Garrigou, the head of the Atelier Saint-Jean-Damascène, who is our master iconographer.

What place does the icon have in Orthodox theology?

M.-H. C. : Its place in tradition is very old. The face of Christ was reproduced and the Mother of God painted from the time of the apostles. It attests to the dogma of the Incarnation. The icon values ​​the human body and matter. Christ is God made man, he spoke, he made himself visible, he was touched. “The life has been manifested, and we have seen it and bear witness”says Saint John in his first epistle. The icon, like the Word, is revelation. The icon of a saint shows him transfigured, already in eternal life. This is why facial expressions should not reflect emotion or passion, anything psychological.

In history, in the 8th century in particular, the veneration of icons has been suspected of idolatry…

M.-H. C. : This is not idolatry: we do not adore icons, we venerate them. The icon, in theology, illustrates the mystery of the divine energies by which the Holy Spirit transfigures and sanctifies matter. But it is above all the person represented who is made truly present by the Spirit. Faith in the real presence of God and the saints is fundamental. For this reason, many saints suffered martyrdom while defending icons during the iconoclastic period.

Y. C. : The saints in icons are “invisibly present”. This is why we worship them. In front of them, we make the sign of the cross, we prostrate ourselves, we kiss them, we look into their eyes. The saint represented looks at the faithful, and this gaze is sometimes so strong that some have difficulty bearing it.

How do you choose the icon you are going to create?

M.-H. C. : Often we make icons at someone’s request. This creates a bond between us that I would describe as “eternal”. We pray for this person. Or an inner call invites us to work on a scene linked to this or that liturgical celebration.

We can also feel called by a saint. Yves and I were married religiously during a trip to Sinai. We had to find wedding rings, but there were none anywhere. We went by taxi to the nearest big hotel and there, in a window, there were only two wedding rings, which were just the right sizes! The ceremony was held on April 1st, which bothered me a little. So I looked up which saint we were celebrating that day. It was Saint Mary the Egyptian, a former prostitute who retired for forty years in the desert of Sinai. I immediately set about writing his icon.

What happens when an icon is finished? Is there a special ceremony?

Y. C. : Yes, the icon is consecrated with a magnificent prayer. In the midst of the people, the priest blesses and consecrates it. But it is then, through the veneration of the faithful who recognize their faith in it, that it takes on all its power.

M.-H. C. : Some icons heal. Some shed tears, others give off a delicious perfume, an “odor of holiness”. Orthodox tradition records many miracles.

You have been writing icons for more than twenty years. How has this affected your life of faith?

Y. C. : For me, it was a revelation to understand that the person you are painting is “invisibly present”. I’m talking to this person present. Writing icons also moves us forward in our inner life. We learn patience, surrender, humility. The more we cling to making a beautiful icon, the less successful we are.

M.-H. C. : We must let ourselves be carried by the Spirit, by God, by the saint that we make present. But we are always confronted with technical problems, a color that we cannot find, our thoughts that keep coming back… The icon requires a form of spiritual combat. When we undertake an icon we have an idea in mind, but we are confronted with the reality of the material we use, with ourselves too and with its limits, and ultimately it is the icon which decides. I once spent two days of training crying in my car because I wasn’t achieving what I wanted.

When you start an icon, can’t you, if you think it’s a failure, say to yourself: I’ll throw it away and start again?

M.-H. C. : One day I had a problem with the wooden board I was working on. Each board is primed with a glued canvas, which prevents cracks, then with around fifteen layers of coating sanded so that we arrive at a very smooth texture, similar to ivory. When I started the icon of Saint Silouane, a chemical reaction – too much glue in the coating? – produced halos. I wanted to stop but our teacher told me: “Do you want to put it in the trash?” » So I finished it despite the stains. She has a very nice presence now.

Have you overcome your difficulties?

M.-H. C. : Little by little, by giving up wanting to create a beautiful work of art, by learning to abandon myself to let God act, by stopping the work when I am no longer sufficiently in prayer and in true humility. Humility is not an empty word for us. Before starting an icon, we pray Psalm 50, which is the psalm of repentance: “Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in your great tenderness, erase my sin…”

Y. C. : This work requires real self-abandonment, even if it retains a part of personal creativity, as long as it is consistent with the Gospel: we do not reproduce icons identically. As for me, I still can’t paint the looks. I still let our teacher do it.

Is the pose of the gaze a special moment?

M.-H. C. : It is the look that gives life to the icon. It takes many conditions to create a truly prayerful icon. It is through prayer that we achieve this. As we work, we continually recite the prayer of the heart: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us! » Father Jean-Baptiste Garrigou says that there was a small village of iconographic monks in Russia. When a monk had to look at the face, he knocked on all the windows so that the whole village would fast that day. Writing an icon requires a certain asceticism.

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Three reference books

Léonide Ouspensky, The Theology of the Icon in the Orthodox ChurchCerf, 2003, 530 p. A major work, published for the first time in 1960, by a great iconographer and Orthodox theologian of the 20th century.

Tania Velmans, The Art of the Icon, Citadelles and Mazenod, 2013, 384 p. A very beautiful art and history book which presents the most beautiful Byzantine icons from the 6th to the 15th century, by a specialist, honorary research director at the CNRS.

Egon Sendler, The Mysteries of Christ: the icons of the liturgyDesclée de Brouwer, 2001, 320 p. Festivities linked to the life of Christ and their interpretation in icons. By Father Sendler, Jesuit, hieromonk of the Byzantine rite, iconographer and art historian.