THE ICON OR THE THERAPY THROUGH IMAGE

In traditional thinking, human existence was conceived like a fall from a state of grace in consequence of the original sin. Thus, life did not have any other purpose, but to recovering the initial state by healing off the disease of being in becoming and ephemeral. Holy places or objects have always mediated the contact between the human being and the absolute, perceived like the only true reality. As an expression of the “sacred”, the icon becomes a way of spiritual healing, implicitly a way to heal the soul. Therefore, all the levels at which it can be deciphered do not have another purpose but to justify this function. From a formal perspective of the elements that make up the image, the sacred is suggested by some geometrical forms with colors having a symbolic value or by relations considered to be perfect - relations and proportions that are to be found again in the intimate structure of the whole universe and of the human being itself. That is why the contemplation of an icon determines the resonance with its enciphered rhythms meeting the need for the sacred, and it harmonizes the human being. From a phenomenological point of view, the icon proves to be a place of presence, of meeting. It is the part of transition to the transcendental horizon. The look of the bystander crosses the visible and the objective in order to meet a prototype, which is not an original or a second visible beyond the first one, but it is a second look that penetrates the materiality of the icon. This second look is a commanding authority to the perceiver. It is the light of the invisible divine eye, which lightens and purifies the spirit of the one contemplating it.