Show icons works of art Al members embers of the greek church 0 rus ela sia where images are forbidden bor bidden have resorted to what an unfriendly critic has described as an ingenious evasion of df an ecclesiastical prohibition they do not carve came a figure out of marble or shape it in bronze but they paint the face hands and perhaps the feet of a saint on wood nood and form the robes by means of metal work in relief the nimbus of the saint Is not infrequently enameled and in some caseb the arap rap cry Is studded with precious stones but bejeweled icons of any real value are not as a rule to bo be found in churches though sometimes images are covered with glass to protect them from the kisses of those who come corne to pray before them in the seventeenth century therk was a great demand in russia for portable icons especially from members of a sect known as the old believers who as they were under the ban of a persecuting government wished for icons that they could carry about and conceal with ease only russian pa tience perli perhaps aps could have liae proved equal to the task 0 producing the delicately delica taly worked au almost microscopic objects that speedily became popular a last judgment for instance rc resented on a background baclig round of a few square inches but according to some critics it is in these things that russian art is seen at its best small icons are sometimes sollie found on oil soldiers sol dueis 1 killed in war ar icons may represent re anything from the figure of a nit alt to a historical scene such as a martyn lom often they take the form of a diptych or a triptych or a polyp crowded with angular or diminutive figures of saints or miniature scenes scene from the life of the virgin or some other biblical personage from the number of scenes contained in these objects the peasants came to call them churches for there were not more pictorial representations within the church itself such icons may be of brass or of carved boxwood boxi Nood being sometimes ornamented namen ted with enamels |