This book was first published in 1997 and has gone through two editions since. Even before the second, in 2008 (which we reviewed), it was called a classic of its genre for the clarity with which the author explains what icons are, how they function in Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition, how they’re made, and then with reproductions of examples of famous and not-so-famous saints who look back at you.
The occasion for this third edition was perhaps the death of the author. Jim Forest died in 2022. In addition to iconography, Forest was known for his friendships with the famous monks Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh; founder of The Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day; and the spiritual writer Henri Nouwen. Forest wrote articles and books about them all. But he also converted to Russian Orthodoxy in middle age, and it is from his sensitive approach to the beauty of that tradition, and his intense participation in it, that gave birth to this book.
This volume is extraordinary in its art reproductions. Printed on expensive glossy paper, there are dozens of color images of icons, and dozens of color and black-and-white photographs of ordinary and famous iconographers, interiors of Russian churches where icons are an essential part of worship and devotion, and tools used by religious artists who make icons.
Priority of place is given to the part of the book devoted to “The Face of the Savior and Icons of Christ’s Mother.” Then come short, equally colorful explanations of “feasts” common to every Orthodox church — days each year for honoring and remembering things like “The Raising of Lazarus,” and the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ.
Short chapters are devoted to the symbolism of popular saints in the East such as Seraphim of Sarov and Nicholas the Wonderworker. And other chapters are devoted to practical topics such as “Qualities of an Icon,” “The Making of an Icon,” “Rules for the Icon Painter,” and “An Iconographer’s Prayer.”
Nancy Forest, Jim’s wife, pens an eloquent and personal Afterword, talking about his last years, their life together, their Orthodox parish, Jim’s final and yet-unfinished book project about Adam and Eve, and Jim’s death. There is even a photograph of him in the hospital. And there is a final thought from Forest (see the excerpt accompanying this review) about how “each and every one of us is an icon.”
