The general societal shutdown instigated by the 2020–21 COVID-19 pandemic provoked a crisis for many people, causing widespread sleeping disorders, problems focusing and feelings of anxiety and despair for the future. People employed a wide array of coping strategies for dealing with their physical isolation, including—as one study summarizes—“emotion-focused strategies (e.g., using emotional support, religion), problem-focused strategies (e.g., using instrumental support), dysfunctional/avoidant coping strategies (e.g., self-distraction, substance use), and physical activity.”
One of the more unique suggestions for coping with isolation involved reading Voyage Autour de Ma Chambre (A Journey Round My Room), a late eighteenth-century work by Xavier de Maistre, a French soldier and writer who wrote the short book while under house arrest for fighting an illegal duel. Published by his brother, the authoritarian philosopher Joseph, de Maistre—in the words of one reviewer—“imbues the tour of his chamber with great mythology and grand scale. As he wanders the few steps that it takes to circumnavigate the space, his mind spins off into the ether.”
Putting aside de Maistre’s motivation for writing—he may simply have staved off boredom, or he might have begun suffering a breakdown—I find myself drawn to his intense use of art to expand his mental horizons. In the words of culture writer Donald Brackett, “de Maistre was capable of deriving extreme pleasure from travelling into the works of art he surrounded himself with.”
“How sublime,” de Maistre proclaims, “is the painter’s art!”
Happy is he who is touched by the aspect of nature, and does not depend upon his pictures for a livelihood who does not paint solely as a pastime, but struck with the majesty of a beautiful form, and the wonderful way in which the light with its thousand tints plays upon the human face, strives to imitate in his works the wonderful effects of nature! Happy, too, is the painter who is led by love of landscape into solitary paths, and who can make his canvas breathe the feeling of sadness with which he is inspired by a gloomy wood or a desert plain. His productions imitate and reproduce nature. He creates new seas and dark caverns into which the sun has never peered. At his command, coppices of evergreens spring into life, and the blue of heaven is reflected on his pictures. He darkens the air, and we hear the roar of the storm. At another time he presents to the eye of the wondering beholder the delightful plains of ancient Sicily: startled nymphs flee the pursuit of a satyr through the bending reeds; temples of stately architecture raise their grand fronts above the sacred forest that surrounds them. Imagination loses itself among the still paths of this ideal country.
Gazing at the portrait of a past love puts de Maistre in a “strange and unexpected position (which) caused all thought of time and space to vanish from my mind.” He similarly finds his intellect about to “(lose) its supremacy” to his emotions and imagination while contemplating a painting by Raphael.
De Maistre’s “extreme pleasure from travelling into the works of art”, where not only his thoughts but his experience itself is transported through the piece, causes me to think about the spiritual theology of Christian iconography. The links are not exact, of course—the Christian understanding of iconography extends far beyond icons as mere works of art, regardless of the intensity of our emotional response to the craftsmanship—but de Maistre nonetheless reminds me of the mediatory role played by icons.
Fr. Andrew Louth notes that icons “mediate to us the presence of those to whom we pray…(they) fulfil the purpose of mediating a prayerful presence.” This means icons are, as another writer puts it, “a gateway, an entry point to let your spirit wander into divine presence.” While this is reminiscent of the traveling described by de Maistre, there is a significant difference. The portrait of Madame de Hautcastel enabled de Maistre to feel once more the “intoxicating bliss” of being with his beloved, but he nonetheless admits the experience was a brief moment of “recall(ing) into existence” her face; his memory and imagination worked together to generate an intensely pleasurable fantasy until his reason interfered with his fantasizing and ended the experience. In contrast, the Christian icon is “a mode of revelation;” it “function(s) like a sacrament, a channel of grace.” Rather than an object stimulating the memory of an absent person, icons draw us deeper into relationship with the present and active God.
What does it mean to say icons are revelatory or channels of grace? Perhaps one way of understanding this is expressed through a common term for icons: “windows into heaven.” While some windows are tinted or glazed so that only side is transparent (and thus permit a person to observe the activity on the other side of the window without being seen herself), most allow people on both sides to look through the pane. In this way, Anthony Sweere, FBP explains, “The icon shows you, through an image, life at the throne of God; however, the life you are viewing is also viewing you.” Icons are intrinsically relational.
There is far more that I could say about icons than I’ve covered in this very brief article—and I undoubtedly will write more in the future—but I want to conclude with a quote from Leonid Ouspensky, a noted Orthodox Christian expert on iconography: when looking at an icon “it is as if man were standing before a path which, instead of losing itself in space, opens on to infinite fullness. A door which leads to divine life therefore, is opened before the Christian.”
Image: Journey Round My Room, Chapter 1 Headpiece (Source).
