Icons in Hazmat suits!

 Pietro Cavallini  Fresco 1300

Venerating Icons is second nature and I believe in the miraculous having witnessed it  in my own life ( more about that some other day). For those of you who don't know, some Icons have miracles associated with them. 
The purpose of an Icon is to cast your mind heavenward, to tell the story of events and to aid in prayer. The prayer is not to the Icon but to the person  that the image is of eg: Christ. The image on the wood is just that, an image on wood and nothing more.

Then of course there is the artistic side, recognising the skill of the artist, composition etc.. However what I didn't realise until recently was the truly hazardous nature of the materials they worked with. I love art and feel that I could give myself over to the prayer and meditation as well as having the ability to paint to a reasonable standard. I wondered if Icon painting might be the way to go.  There is a lot of skill to Icon painting and the materials require a lot of work. One of the interesting things was mixing your own pigments. It interested me so I went to look for more information. After searching the internet I came across this http://www.iconofile.com/ , scrolling down brings up a list of horrors such as mercury, lead and arsenic in the pigments.

Such revelations bring a renewed appreciation for artists of old and the risks they took to give us works of great beauty.  Unless there is a safe alternative I think I'd rather leave Icon painting to  others.  It's that or  painting in a Hazmat suit!