>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington DC. >>Joan Weeks: good afternoon,
ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of my colleagues, and
in particular, Dr. Mary-Jane Deeb, who's Chief of the African
and Middle Eastern Division, I'd like to extend a very
warm welcome to everyone. I'm Joan Weeks, head of
the Near-East Section, the sponsor of today's
program, and we're very pleased to present this program on the
Icons of the Coptic Church, but before we start today's
program and introduce our speaker, I'd like to give you a brief
overview of the division and its resources in the
hopes that you'll come back and do research in our reading room. This is a custodial division, which
is comprised of three sections that build and serve the collections to researchers from
around the world. We cover over 78 countries and
more than two dozen languages. We have the African section, which
includes all the countries of sub- Sahara Africa, Hebraic section,
which is responsible for Judaica and Hebraic worldwide, and the
Near-East section, which covers all of the Arab countries,
including North Africa, Turkey, Turkic Central Asia, Iran,
Afghanistan, and the Muslims in western China, Russia,
the Balkans, and the people of the Caucuses, a
very extensive reason. Now little bit about
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at the information desk at the front as you leave, and I'd also
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you that you are being filmed, and you're implicitly giving
your permission to be filmed. So now I'd like to call upon
my colleague, Dr. Fawzi Tadros, our Arab World Specialist,
to introduce our speaker. Thank you. >> Fawzi Tadros: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, it
is my pleasure to introduce to you Mrs. Evelyn Rophael. Throughout the years, Ms. Evelyn
Rophael has been an active participant in the Coptic Church. She has come to love and admire
the determination to survive, to keep its Christian identity
against overwhelming odds, to maintain its ancient
traditions and to honor and venerate its heroic sense. Mrs. Rophael has painted numerous
icons, girls in the altar area of many Coptic churches in
the USA, Canada, and Egypt. She has assisted in the
establishment of the Coptic Chapel at St. Vladimir Orthodox
Seminary by preparing and restoring all the
painting and painted new ones. She has illustrated 15
books on Coptic Saints and several other children's books
concerning Coptic sacraments. Among her impressive publications, a book on one of the major
monasteries in Egypt. She has painted an estimated
600 icons over the years. She has also presented lectures
concerning the Coptic Church at the US government
agency that were broadcast to government offices
around the world. Among her icons, one was used
to illustrate a Swedish book about the Coptic Church and in
various international publications. Ms. Evelyn lives with her Egyptian
husband near the West River, Maryland, enjoys almost anything
involving art, history, and science. Please join me to welcome
Miss Evelyn. [ Applause ] >>Evelyn Rophael: it's really
such a great honor and privilege and blessing to be here today,
and thank you all for coming. In addition to what Dr.
Fawzi Todros said about me, I'd like to introduce
myself a little more. I'm and iconographer for the Coptic
Church, which is the Orthodox Church of Egypt, and before I went
to Egypt the first time, I really wasn't aware of the
Christian presence in Egypt. I rented a National Geographic,
something about monks living in the desert, and
that's all I knew. So when I went to Egypt, I was
there to see the ancient monuments, and part of my tour of Egypt,
I was on a Nile cruise ship, and I spoke with the captain of
the cruise ship, and he mentioned that he was a Coptic Christian. So he was the first Coptic
Christian I had spoken with. So I married him. So anyway, I began doing
icons for the Coptic Church, and I'm going to take you through
a couple thousand years of history of Coptic icons, and then I'm going
to talk about the icons that I do, the process behind doing an icon,
and so, get your seatbelts buckled. We're in for a 2000-year trip. Coptic art is a continuation of
the ancient art of the pharaohs that has always been
a very unique art, always identifiable as that's Egypt. And when I was talking to some
monks about the presentation today, I asked, what do you
think I should mention? And they each said, you need to mention it's a continuation
of Egyptian art. It's not something separate. It's a continuation that art
has always been unique to Egypt, and even though it's a
different style involved, and it's a different faith involved,
it's a continuation of Egyptian art, and on the screen you see kind
of that very quick continuation. The pharaonic art, and then you see
a blending of pharaonic and Roman, and then an early Coptic icon. Ancient Egyptian art
influenced Coptic art. You can see that in so many of the
details of ancient and Coptic art, like the pharaonic picture
below where the god Anubis and Tahuke are recording
the deeds of the soul. They're using a scale to weigh
the soul, and in the Coptic images of the Archangel Michael,
you frequently see that he's holding a scale,
and in ancient Egypt, the soul of the deceased person is
shown by little winged creature. That was called the Ba. In Coptic art, well in
any of the Christian art, you see the winged Holy Spirit,
and then the Egyptian ankh, which was considered a symbol of
eternal life in ancient Egypt, that was an early Coptic cross, and
even today, you see some reference to it as being the Coptic
cross, an early Coptic cross. Ancient Egyptians were used to
seeing the image of an infant god, and many scholars feel
that this was preparation that helped them except
the new faith of Christianity when
it came to Egypt. It was brought by St. Mark within
a few decades of the crucifixion of Christ and over the
next couple centuries, Christianity spread very
quickly throughout Egypt, and for several centuries,
it was a Christian nation. Among some of the best-known
art of this period of Egypt is the Fayoum mummy
portraits, which were dated from about 50 BC to about 350
A.D. incredibly realistic images that were done basically with hot
wax, and there's a lot of division on who painted them
and for what purpose. Some say that it is Roman art. Yes, you see the, encaustic
paintings like this throughout
the Roman Empire. Other say that, well,
it was Egyptian art that may be the Romans copied. Some say it's Roman people who
are the subject of this art, because it was a Roman
area at the time. But I look at these
pictures of these people in these very realistic portraits,
I see the faces of Egyptians I know. So I really feel these
were Egyptian people. I don't think they were religious
Christian images because, you know, women are wearing nice
jewelry and everything. But look at the eyes. The eyes are very prominent. They're in large, and
that became a hallmark of Coptic art, large,
expressive eyes. Between Fayoum and a few centuries
later, there were other encaustic, again the wax, the hot wax that
was used to make portraits. My different populations in Egypt. There was a Greek population and
Syrian, and there's one like that, and because of this network
of different populations, it's hard to follow an exact line,
straight line, because again, they didn't document everything
that so-and-so painted this, and he was from such and
such nation, but if you look at this encaustic icon of St.
Peter, from the seventh century, you can see a connection to
the Fayoum mummy portraits that were several centuries
earlier, but to me, if you look at these three small
images on top of St. Peter, the one of St. Mary and
the one of the young man on the left, to me they are Coptic. Now look at the eyes. The eyes are very large,
very expressive. These are Coptic. We see images that echo
some of the main features of the Fayoum portraits but a
different style is evolving. Here we see more of the Coptic look. The one on the right is from
the Codex Washingtonian, which is an early Bible. Some say this is from
the fourth century. Others say this is more from
the first or second century. Notice a large eyes. They are expressive,
and the long nose. In the Coptic art it's
with a thought that the large eyes
are looking to God. The nose is long and thin. The mouth is small,
because we are not talking. We're listening to God. Below we see from ancient
monasteries the same large eyes. The proportions of the
body are not realistic. It's with the thought that
it's not the body that counts. It's the spirit, and so when
you look at Coptic icons, again, it's not the proportion of the body. Realism is not attempted. And monastic art, you find that the
icons have a or drab appearance. They're not as colorful. Obviously, the monks are
not looking for beauty. They're looking for a
statement in the icons. The small flask on the
right is an ancient flask. They're about this big from an
ancient monastery of St. Menas. And notice, there's
an image of the Saint. He's noticed to have his hands out
with a couple camels behind him, and these flasks are found
as far away as Ireland, in ancient archaeological
digs in Ireland. And it's not known whether
pilgrims made it to Egypt and brought these flasks
back to them, or that monks traveled that far out. There were many nationalities in ancient Egypt, even
in the monasteries. This is from the Syrian monastery,
which was owned and operated by Syrian monks in Egypt, and
this is an interesting portrait of the patriarchs Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. Notes they're holding little
tiny figures in their arms. These are representations of
the souls of the deceased. This representation of like a heaven
and an upper level of heaven is from an ancient monastery. Below we see St. Mary
in the infant Jesus, and they have different
saints with them. But above, Jesus is in a
circle, and he has these like flames coming
out from the sides. He surrounded by angels. And this is the first icon that
is showing Jesus as the King of all things, and that
he's above everything. And speaking of above, we
have three representations of Jesus here the one on
the right, the upper right, is from St. Catherine's
monastery, which is in Egypt. It's been owned and operated by the
Greek orthodox for many centuries, but they have icons there and
manuscripts from all nations, and this one was done in
about the sixth century. It's considered the first
standard icon of Jesus that we know still
today of that image, and we don't know whether it was
done by Greek or whoever there in the sixth century,
but if you look over at the large one beside
it, you see the same face. And this larger one, this
is from an icon or a dome in an ancient church in upper Egypt. Look at the Angels. They're beautiful, and Jesus is
holding his hand in blessing, and he's holding a gospel. To me, this is a beautiful
piece of work. On the other side is a modern
dome of a church in Egypt. It's a cathedral in
St. Mina Monastery. It's European, a little bit
of the Byzantine influence, but basically, it's European art. This is one of my main concerns
about the Coptic Church. Instead of just really utilizing
their beautiful, ancient heritage of Coptic art, you see a lot of
them turning to European art, and I think they shouldn't -- you
know, okay, if you want European art in your home, that's fine. In the Coptic Church,
it should be Coptic art. You go to a Greek church,
it's Greek art. You go to a Russian church, it's
Russian art, and I just really, really hope that the Coptic church
gets back into any new church, any new cathedral, Coptic art,
because it's worth keeping. These are a couple more images
of both the ancient Coptic art. This one on the left is
from St. Anthony Monastery. It's considered the oldest,
continuously habited monastery. It's on the Red Sea. And this is a modern translation of
the same design, the Pantocrator. In the mid-1700s, this was
during like the Ottoman Empire, and somehow, and Armenian
name Johannes came to Egypt, and he did hundreds and hundreds
of icons throughout Egypt. They're in churches and
monasteries, and they're beautiful, and they have their own unique
style, and just, the last time I was in Egypt, I was taken
to a church that had -- it started in the fourth century, and it had several
different chapels. Each chapel came from
different centuries, but they had this incredible
collection of icons by Johan the Armenian. Coptic iconography was
redefined during the mid-1960s by two people -- well, three if
you count the couple, Badour Latif and her husband Yussef
Nessif, and Dr. Issac Fanous, and in the main cathedral
in Cairo the Badour Latif, her icons are in the main
level at the icon stand, and Issac Fanous's icons
are in a different level. So both of them are very highly
esteemed, and a few years ago, I had the really great honor of
meeting Badour Latif at her home, and you can see that she's working
on an icon here of St. Mark. She died about four years ago,
but it was really a great honor. I considered her that
someone who taught me, even though I never met
her before that point, even with the modern Coptic
art, which you see on the right, you still see the influence
from the past. This ancient hymnbook from 1743
showing Moses and the burning bush, Isaac Fanous did this icon of the
burning bush, and he put St. Mary, represented and it,
showing that just as the flames did not consume
the burning bush, which was God, that St. Mary was not consumed
by having God within her. So here we have some
nativity scenes. The one of the top left
is by Badour Latif. What I always liked about her
art was she has flowers and it. She has animals that it,
and just very natural, and I always like that. I kind of reflect that in my icons. Beside hers is a nativity
by Isaac Fanous. His are very beautiful. His or more geometric, and I like
the placement of his figures, and so I always try to just kind
of pick out what I like best from the two styles and use that. Below is one by Johan the
Armenian, and his is more of a Byzantine theme,
and then the one I did. So now we have, you know, up
into the twentieth century, and now we're going to talk
about some of my icons. First of all, something
about the creative process. I found this on the Internet,
and yes, whatever span of time, let's say I agree a I'm going
to have an icon done by the end of the month or within
one month time. Okay, work begins. My husband, Wafik, will cut
the wood and prepare it, and everything's ready to go. Okay, yes, I'll do it. It'll be ready by the
end of the month. The next 25 days, I'm goofing off. And then a couple days, I
like, yeah, I've really got to get started, and all the work
while crying -- and I'm not crying, I'm just kind of kicking
myself that, you know, I really should've started this
earlier, and the last two days is like hurry, hurry, hurry. So yes, the creative process. So when I get an assignment
for an icon, I first draw out a very
rough painting or drawing. I don't really like to
do a detailed sketch. I just -- I don't. It's a rough drawing, and I work out
placement and everything like that and what I want written on it, and I
have a few monks who are kind enough to look over my Coptic and
make sure spelling is correct, make suggestions about
the icon design itself, and then I start painting. I use acrylic, because it's a paint that works quickly,
and it dries quickly. In most iconography, you find people
say that they use the Tempera paint, which is with egg white and
pigments and sort of like that, but that takes longer
to work with, and monks and bishops have told me,
just get the job done. So okay. The Coptic art of today, it's accepted that the
figures have round heads, and again, the large eyes. And it's a simple -- it's
not trying for realism. It's a style. It's a simple style, and one thing
about Coptic art which I really, really enjoy is that the
figures look peaceful, and it's with the thought that
whatever they have suffered, even if it's a martyr,
whatever they have suffered, the suffering is over. They're in heaven,
and they're at peace. So that's one way to always, you
know, recognize a Coptic icon. The subject is at peace. I recently did a sign for
our church, and again, you can see the process
involved, just a crude sketch. And I sent it to one of my monk
friends what I wanted to put on the sketch, and he
nicely wrote it out for me, and whatever the languages, I
always dread doing lettering, a lot of lettering, because surely, I'm going to make a mistake
somewhere, and it's like, oh, I left out such and such letter,
and I have to find a way to fix it. By the way, one of my main rules of
art is that if you make a mistake, and you can't paint over it,
make it part of the design. So that's happened many times. This is an icon of St. George. You can see where I
roughed in the shadows, and then the finished
painting, and with any icon, there's going to be several
layers of paint involved. Usually with an icon, it's -- you
start out with the dark colors and you apply the lighter colors,
showing the progress of the soul from darkness to the light, and
it's nice that acrylic works out that way, that you
start with the dark, and then with gold
leaf, putting that on. It's a process that depending on the
icon involved, depending on my -- do I really want to paint
today, which is terrible, I've done some icons within one day. I've done some icons that
just seem to drag on forever. So there's no real how long
does it take to do an icon? A few years ago, I did altar of a
church, and I worked with the monk. And he drew out the design that he
wanted, or he told me the design, and so you can see in the
middle picture to the right, the basic design that became
the central Jesus Christ, and you can see there's
elements from the past and it like the Angels overhead. That's a direct connection to
the ancient image of Jesus, the image of Jesus being carried
by angels, and below is Abraham, the patriarch, Abraham being given
bread and wine by [inaudible]. How do you say it? Yeah, thank you. When I was doing this, looking
at this picture reminds me, one of my concerns was
the monk wanted a rainbow. This particular altar area
had several angles involved, and trying to figure a rainbow
that was going to be even was -- I was measuring here and then
the measure here, go up 2 inches. Measure here, go up 2 inches. So this monk said, "No-no-no." So he found a piece of chalk,
and he taped it to a broomstick, and he stood, and he drew a rainbow. And it was like, wow. Why didn't I think of that? And when I was working on the image
of the face of Jesus being held by the two angels, I was on
a ladder, but it was in front of the steps to like
where I'm standing now, and it was difficult to reach. The ladder was at a difficult
angle, and I'm trying to reach it, and the monk was saying,
"But, you know, you've got one ear a little
bit lower than the other. Can you fix that?" So I was trying to get it. Again, it was a difficult angle. So he said, "Do you mind if
I try, because I'm taller?" So he climbed up the ladder,
and he was getting it correct, and the young man from
the church came in. So he looks at me, and he looks up
at the monk at the ladder painting, and he looks back at me like,
so the monk is doing the work. What are you doing here? And this seraphim, really, this is one of my favorite
things I've ever painted. I love doing angels,
and so this is just one of the favorite things
that I've done. This is kind of a, again, different
styles of the entry into Jerusalem. The one on the left
is eighteenth-century. It's from upper Egypt. It's a more simple style, but I
really love this because first of all, the dark blue,
but if you look carefully, you see the palm leaves in the
background that are being used, you know, to welcome Jesus. And you see the others throwing
cloths at the feet of Jesus, and in this one -- the upper
one done by Fanous, again, you see the palm leaves, and you
see the people throwing cloths at the feet of Jesus. The bottom one is one I did. And what I did with the
entry into Jerusalem, and the disciples are all
wearing the same uniform. They're wearing white with red, just
so we all know they're disciples, and all of them except one
has a happy expression. One of them, if you look
carefully, is kind of glowering, and we all know who he is, and all of them are holding a palm
leaf except for one, and also, what I do and almost every
entry into Jerusalem, and you see that in the
little insert to the left. I like to put myself and my
husband, Wafik, into the picture that we're watching entry into
Jerusalem, but we're copticized. The closest thing about this
one is that she has the long, light brown hair, but at least
we're there watching the entry into Jerusalem. This is another one that I
did a couple of years ago. It's one of my favorites, and
it's the baby Moses being taken from the Nile River, and I was
asked to do this by a Jewish man, and so it was fun doing
the ancient temple and Miriam hiding in the papyrus. Actually, it's on my
list of things to do, that someone wants a large painting
of this, and just more temples and and so I'm like that. So I'm looking forward
to starting that. Go through my creative
process again. Noah's Ark. Basically, this is kind of a
standard, Coptic Noah's Ark. As an animal lover, it was
great fun for me to do. If you look closely near the
boat, you see a pair of dogs, and I have them sitting
down, looking up, waiting for their human
friends to come off the boat, and then over to the left, there's
two cats, and they're looking at the pair of mice that just came
off the boat, and they're thinking, should we eat them now or
wait until there's more mice? So a monk said to me on this
one, but really, next time, you need to keep with
the clean animals. And I'm, yeah, sure. The icon of the Virgin Mary,
I've gotten into the habit, I like to put for stalks of
papyrus and an icon of Jesus or the Virgin Mary, because not
only is it a symbol of Egypt, the earliest known Bible fragments
that exist were on papyrus and found in Egypt, and then with the
Virgin Mary, I like to have lotus, just a nice flower to remind
her of her time in Egypt. Some exceptions to Coptic art
that I do, like if it's a saint who has died recently, I mean
within the past 50 years, where there's photographs
of him, yes, I will do a more realistic face. The one at the bottom is from
a monastery in upper Egypt, and this is a very
unsophisticated painting, but I love this icon of this saint. It might be unsophisticated, but you
can see the painter put his heart into it, and so I've made
copies of that icon before, and when I was asked to do an
icon of this saint for a church, I did a more realistic looking, so
he could look proper next to Jesus, but the monk holding
the picture down below, he's holding the original icon. So I could the original icon in,
and a more realistic-looking picture of this thing, and these are
just some of my favorite icons. I love doing angels. Doing the archangels was great fun. I call this the family
portrait of archangels. The one of Jesus rescuing the lamb. Again, as an animal lover, to me, this was great fun
on several levels. Notice that the lamb, he's caught
in thorns, and he's crying. He's so sad, and he feels lost,
and Jesus is coming to rescue him and comforting him and saving him. And any excuse to do a pretty night
sky, I always enjoy doing that. Whether it's the prayer Desimone
or Jesus walking on water. And the flight into
Egypt, you can see elements from the ancient flight into Egypt. So if it's a large icon, I
often lay it flat to work on. Some of it has to be
done standing up. I can't do a face when
it's laying flat. It has to stand up. And you can see two of my helpers. One of them below is
holding the paintbrush, and the other one is keeping
the feet of Jesus warm. These two icons were going
to a church in Pennsylvania. I thought I was finished
with them the night before. We were going to transport them. And then I tore the gold leaf under the inscription,
the Coptic inscription. I tore the gold leaf. I tried to repair it. It looked like it had been repaired. I tried a different way. It looked like it had been repaired. So I ended up painting an Angel -- but if I paint the
angel on one side, it's going to have to
be on the other side. Now if it's on one icon, it's going
to have to be on the other icon. So I was up until like 6
o'clock painting little angels on these icons and varnishing them. I finished that icon at six in
the morning, last coat of varnish, and we got up like at seven or eight
to load them up and transport them. And it's not the first time
I'm letting the varnish dry as we're carrying it
out to a trailer. And then I have my other helper,
my husband Wafik, and what he does, he cuts the wood to size,
and he prepares the word. He gives of the primary
coats of white paint, then he also makes
a lot of the frames. What we see here is at a show that
was all the Orthodox churches, the icons from all
the Orthodox churches. They asked me if I would
demonstrate painting icon. I had one just about
finished anyway. So I brought that, and
they put me up on a stage, and as I stood there painting,
a couple people walked by and said, "Oh, nice icon. Yeah, okay." So after a while, I said
to my husband, well, I'm going to go get
something to drink. If you want to do something,
just take the paint and on each of these white dots
put another white dot. It's representing the
stars of heaven. So he's doing that. I go get a drink. I come back, and there's like about
30 people crowded around the stage, and they're doing like,
wow, what an artist! What a beautiful icon! And you know, he's standing there. All he needed was a beret. A beret. And so that was -- so
I just sat there entry I Coke and let him be the great artist. And the other one he was -- I was
doing this icon that was going to be traveling to Egypt within the
next couple of days, and so he gets up at 4 o'clock to go to work, and his soon as he
walks into the kitchen. I've been up all night
working on the icon. He comes into the kitchen. I'm, Wafik, you've got
to write this in Arabic. "I just woke up." I'm, no, no. Come on. It won't take -- come on. So he was very nice to
put the Arabic on that at 4 o'clock in the morning. We went to Jerusalem a
couple of months ago, and we went to a monastery
in Jericho that was named for the Zaccheus, who was
in the tree that Jesus said to him, "Zaccheus, come down." And this small Coptic monastery, all of the icons were the Coptic
style except one which was in front of the candle stand, and
that was a European print of the scene of Jesus and Zaccheus. And so monk said, "I really wish I
could get a Coptic icon of that." And I said, I wish I
could do it to you, but I don't know how
I would get it to you. So we went back to Jerusalem, and I
was telling the hotel manager that, you know, if only, and he said
tell me the size wood you need, and of course, it has to
the high-grade plywood. Not just regular plywood
high-grade plywood, and so he said, "I'll get it for you,"
and the desk clerk said, "I'll find you nearby art store
where you can buy the paints." So within two days I did a Coptic
Zaccheus, and I signed their names on the icon also that I
had an assist from them. And by the way, I signed Wafik's
name on all my icons, too, because really and truly, I
wouldn't be doing icons without him. Not only does he cut the wood and
prepare it and stuff like that, but when I'm doing my last-minute
rush and just all day on painting, all night I'm painting, he's really,
okay, he does so he comes home after a long day of work. He does the dinner. He does the housecleaning. Just get the icon done. Get the icon done. So he deserves a place
on the icon too. Don't expect such niceness
out of me on a regular basis. This is, I went to a large
family conference of a church in Connecticut, and
they had a bishop there that I worked with him before. And he called me just before
we got there, and he said, "We need two icons
of the resurrection." And I said, oh no,
no one told me that. He said, "Can you do two icons by
Sunday so I can consecrate them?" Okay, so in two days I did
two icons of the resurrection, and this is him consecrating
them, and my priest here, Father Chanute [assumed spelling],
please don't get any ideas to ask me can you do to
icons within two days. No. This the icon that I did of a
saint who was recently made or named by our church, and this bishop
had asked me to do this icon. The body of this saint
is in his church. So he took the icon
with him to Egypt, and you see him consecrating it. An icon is either on the walls
the church or they're also used in zeffas, which is a procession around the church in
honor of a saint. Like if we have relics of a
saint, then on the anniversary of that saint, we take the relics
around after they're anointed with holy oil, and the
icons go around with them. So to me, it's really a
great pleasure to contribute to the honoring of a saint. I've got to say that
when working on an icon, you really do feel a certain
closeness to the saint. It's really hard to
describe, but you do feel, if not in actual communication,
it's a closeness, and it's a really,
really nice feeling. One of the things I really
like about Coptic art, especially the Coptic Last Supper,
is that instead of a table full of food, the table has two things
on it, the wine and the bread, which will become the
body and blood. The whole thing is
about the communion. Leonardo da Vinci has
the famous Last Supper where the table is full of food. There's up plate full of
lemon slices and everything, and the message gets lost. But the Coptic art, it's basic. It's the blood in the body. The ancient icon of this to
the right, it's not Coptic. It's actually Syrian, but I loved it
so much I wanted to show it to you. It's looking down from the point
of view of God, and it first, you see a table with maybe
a leg of lamb in the middle for the Passover meal, but I
read an interpretation of it. It's actually the communion cup. The whole table is
the communion cup. Jesus pointing at it
saying drink this. So the whole thing is a cup, and
is being offered to the viewer. While we were in Israel, we
saw the Mount of Temptation, which I thought was really
neat, and next time I do an icon of the Temptation of Christ,
that will be utilized. In this one that I did, I put,
because of the Bible verse, "And he showed them the cities
as if in a moment of time." I put various cities,
Athens and Rome. I even put Washington DC,
because this is a moment in time, and so that was a fun icon to do. Different angels from
different times. Minus the one on the right. Again, you see the
beauty of Coptic art. Not just the modern Coptic art,
but the ancient Coptic art, and to me it's just so beautiful. I just feel that Coptic
churches here, in Egypt, everywhere there's a Coptic
church, they really need to embrace their heritage. So right now, well,
actually there's more pieces of wood sitting there now. This is my living room. The big icon is like 8 feet across, and then there's other icons
there in various stages. I have more. Wafik just keeps bringing
them out saying, "Here, and this one is for so-and-so." And this is what doing
icons is all about. It's putting you in touch with God. It's a window into heaven, and it's
really a great honor and privilege and blessing to me
that I can do this. That hopefully, I can get people
to look at an icon and tell a story and make them want to
be in touch with God. And that's my story of being an
iconographer in the Coptic church. [ Applause ] Yes, and if anyone
has any questions. Yes? >> I'm someone who can
only draw stick figures, and I take my [inaudible],
but I studied art history. So wonder if you could tell us
is the cart before the horse of where you studied art? Was it after you got
fascinated with icons? >>Evelyn Rophael: I've always done
art in one form or another, yes. I've always loved icons. I only knew Greek icons, you
know, until I went to Egypt, but once I went to Egypt and started
looking at their icons it was just, you know, I've got to try this. I did not have a formal study
except that I really threw myself into studying what
is it about this icon that not only is telling the
story, but what do I like about it that I can translate into what I do? Like the one icon I was
pointing out that she likes to put flowers in them in animals. And I really like putting nature
in there, and when I was talking to this iconographer
about, oh, you know, I love the way you have the animals
smiling and something like that. She said, "You know, that's
just what the Pope said to me." So. [ Inaudible Speech ] >> Evelyn Rophael: No, self-taught. Self-taught, which is not
always the best teacher. Anyone else? Yes. >> Thank you very much
for this presentation. It's fascinating. [inaudible]. These are not standard paintings. So they're different from what
a standard painting would be. [inaudible]? >> Evelyn Rophael: Well, first
of all, it's technically, you're writing an icon
that, you know, because of the Greek
word iconography, it actually means writing a
picture, and that picture, especially since you're writing
it, you're telling a story. You're telling a story either of a
saint or a holy scene, and so to me, you want to show the person in
the icon as brave and good-looking or beautiful, because
that's what their soul is. And I want that -- the viewer
to look at an icon and say, yes, I'm seeing a story here. I don't want them to look at
it and say, that's not pretty. So to me, it has to be attractive. It has to have symbols in it. Almost everything in
the background is going to have either three
symbolizing the Holy Trinity or four symbolizing the Gospels or
seven, the days of creation, or 12, the apostles, and I want the person
to study the icon and just look around it and see what's going on. Because that's one of the
reasons icons were first done, to educate people who
could not read. Most people could not read back
then, and so is telling the story. It's illustrating a story, and
today, in the Orthodox churches, we have a front to stand that's
full of icons, the Last Supper, the apostles, Jesus, St. Mary,
the Archangel, et cetera, and so that's really the main
element, telling the story. Why is St. George on a horse? He's killing the Dragon. What is the Dragon? Evil, the devil. And let's say one of a monk. Well, why is he standing there
holding the cane the way he's doing it? Why is he standing there -- why is he wearing something
different than another monk? It's telling the story, and that's
really the elements important to me for an icon. It's telling the story, and it has
to look nice to hold the attention. Somebody once said to me that you
try to make your icons too pretty. That's not Coptic, and
by the way, several monks and bishops said don't
listen to him, Evelyn. But I have seen icons
that are done carelessly, and to me, you lose your story. You lose the attention. Once you lose the person viewing
it, and they're thinking, wow, she looks like she has a mustache. You've lost telling the story. And maybe the story was
something that was going to get the person closer to God. So it has to be attractive,
and it has to tell a story. Anything else? Yes? >> How are the icons consecrated? >>Evelyn Rophael: They use
holy oil, and it's a Bishop, and they use holy oil, and
the ones they showed you, I did two of them in two nights. I knew what was involved, and I'd
given each one of them two coats of varnish, fast-drying varnish, and
as the Bishop was pouring oil on it and doing like this,
I'm thinking oh, God, please don't let the varnish
just be eaten up by the holy oil, and they pray over it,
and they breathe upon it. And it's kind of symbolic about,
you know, the Holy Spirit, and then there's usually
a procession around the church of the new icon. Yes? >> And again, thank you very much. It was fascinating and [inaudible]. About the colors, are
they [inaudible]. >> Evelyn Rophael: Yes, yes. >> Are those colors symbolic? >>Evelyn Rophael: Yes. White symbolizes purity. The gold, the gold
leaf, symbolizes heaven. The blue symbolizes
royalty, and red, of course, symbolizes blood or
martyrdom usually. Someone who was martyred is going
to have something red on, yes. I did an icon of the slaughter
of the innocents of, you know, the Romans coming in and killing
the babies and so on, like that. And rather than showing
the blood on the ground, it was wherever a child was being
slaughtered, there was red flowers on the ground, which
it was symbolic. And, you know, the Angels are
carrying the babies up words. So you still know what happened, and the red of the
martyrdom was still there. Yes? >> [inaudible] Thank you so much. >> Evelyn Rophael: Thank you. >> This is been a presentation
of Library of Congress. Visit us at LOC.gov.
