Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland,Ohio

(left): Icon of the Mother of God and Infant Christ, c. 1425-50, Tempera and gold on wood by Angelos Akotantos (1390-1457), Greece; (right): Icon of the New Testament Trinity, c. 1450, Tempera and gold on poplar wood, Constantinople, Byzantine.

“…[I]cons speak to us of reality transformed and transfigured, both in and through God’s presence. They speak of transcendence and mystery… [and] point to a reality that we have never seen with our own eyes. …[I]cons, represent our limited attempts to speak of the unspeakable.”

– Peter Pearson (born 1957), American Iconographer