Faith through Art: John Patrick Cobb ‘wrote’ this icon with hill country views

By William Penn | Guest Columnist

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, icons are “written” not painted. This is because they are spiritually understood as “the pictorial or symbolical representation of Christian ideas, persons, and history.” They are meditative works, flowing from the prayer and disciplined spiritual life of the iconographer. The true iconographer “writes” in paint with mind and heart open to the presence of Christ, the interior teacher.
This icon is the third in a triptych of baptismal icons by John Patrick Cobb, a parishioner of St. Mary Cathedral in Austin. It is the largest of the three, 7 feet across and 3 feet high. The scene is a composite of settings drawn from the rugged Texas hill country and an abandoned rock quarry in the city of Austin. The quarry is on the grounds of the Highland Park Elementary School Cobb attended from the first to the sixth grade.
The work began as a large and intricately detailed landscape. It then gradually morphed into what became a symbolic representation of the liturgical themes of Easter and Pentecost. This translation of what initially appears as a purely natural setting, into an incarnation in gold leaf and egg tempera of the ancient and eternal spiritual truths of the Gospels, is the hallmark of Cobb’s work as an iconographer.
For this meditation, we have chosen to reproduce only the central section of the icon. This simplifies the focus on the central spiritual and liturgical themes. In the foreground to the left, we see a little girl in a red dress with her left arm raised up to heaven (see pullout at right). In her right hand she holds a broken piece of a colorful Easter piñata. The piñata is held directly over the small stack of firewood at her feet.
Rising above and to the right of the little girl in the early morning sun is a rocky knoll ascending to the top of the icon. Behind the little girl is a simple gate made of wooden sticks. It opens the way to a winding path up the mountain past a grotto with a marble crucifix, leading the Easter pilgrim to the simple hut near the top of the mountain. Descending from the left upon the knoll is the mysterious fire of the Holy Spirit, depicted in unusual shapes and blends of colors –– red, gold and blue. The little girl is calling down the heavenly fire of the Holy Spirit upon the things of this world.
This portrayal of the heavenly fire is taken from a work entitled “Fire in the Sky” by Cobb’s Holy Cross friend and fellow artist, Brother Jeremiah. It guided Cobb to his depiction of the fire of the Holy Spirit as flowing not from the earth but from above. God himself sends this fire down from heaven to begin the process of transfiguring the things of this world into a new heaven and earth.
The little girl stands before us like a burning Easter candle, representing the transition from darkness to the light of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. She also represents the fiery descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles at Pentecost. She is a reminder that each of us has an apostolic calling as a child of God. We are called not only to experience the fire of God’s love and mercy at work in us, but also to a firm personal resolve to share with all this redemptive force at work in our daily lives.
May the Baptism of the Fire of the Holy Spirit purify us, O Lord, and day by day bring our conduct closer to the life of heaven. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

William Penn has written “Chapel Ikons,” a book of meditations on John Patrick Cobb’s Chapel Series Paintings that will be available later this year. The meditation above is part of the book. Penn is a parishioner of St. Austin Parish in Austin. For details about the book, visit www.treatyoakpublishers.com.