The last wonderful thing: the icon of the Heavenly Ladder on Mount Sinai

The last wonderful thing: the icon of the Heavenly Ladder on Mount Sinai

Dr. Elena Ene D-Vasilescu (Oxford)

Academia.edu: July (2013)

Abstract

The Last Wonderful Thing: The icon of the Heavenly Ladder

Description and dating of the icon of the Heavenly Ladder Jacob ‘dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached toheaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. (Genesis 28:) This is what is happening in this icon of The Heavenly or Celestial Ladder, the last ‘wonderful thing’ which a visitor to the ‘Byzantium’ exhibition at the Royal Academy saw before leaving the place. Except that on the Sinai ladder there are notonly angels depicted, but also their ‘counters’ – the devil figures (Fig. 1).In the icon from Sinai a ladder with 30 rungs crosses the compositiondiagonally and unites earth with heaven. On a golden and luminous background thedark silhouettes of the monks caught in their struggle, helped by the chants of two choirs, capture the viewer’s eye. The mouth of Hell is at the bottom of the ladder andone of the monks is already half inside it. Other monks at the bottom right areattending the scene and are raising their arms in prayer. Some angels at the upper leftare also part of the narrative, as they have a vital role to play in people’s ascension to Heaven.

As shown by Robin Cormack and Maria Vassilaki in the catalogue of the exhibition, “Their haloes resemble spinning wheels, as they are polished to reflect light. This technique of burnishing is a characteristic of several icons produced at Sinai” The authors continue, emphasizing further the similarity between the icon under discussion and another particular icon, also from St Catherine: “The back of the icon [of Heavenly Ladder; Fig. 3] shows crosses within medallions, a decoration found in other twelfth-century icons from Sinai, with which this icon has been connected in style, such as the icon of the Annunciation” [Fig. 4]. In addition to this example, the icon of the Crucifixion (Fig. 5) and the icon with the Miracle at Chonai (Fig. 6), both from the Monastery of St Catherine, can be used to illustrate the similarity of the technique of burnishing, and of the icons themselves.

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