The Icon

This is Konrad Onasch and Annemarie Schnieper's own scholarly survey of the Eastern Christian icon, published in English translation by Riverside Book Company in 1997 from the authors' original German edition, Onasch a scholar of Christian archaeology and ecclesiastical art and Schnieper an art historian and journalist. It covers the historical origins of icon painting, the major icon centers and schools, recurring themes by image subject, and the materials and technique of icon production. Its strength is that it is a substantial, richly illustrated academic survey by specialists in the field. Its limit is that as a broad survey it moves quickly across many centuries and regions, so a claim needing depth on one specific icon tradition or period should be checked against a more narrowly focused scholarly source as well.