Holman Hunt’s The Light of the World and Iconography: “In Your Light We See Light”

Starting with the light radiating from Christ in Hunt's painting, this essay considers the way in which the revelation of God in Christ is ‘seen’ and depicted. Drawing upon the phenomenology of Michel Henry, the essay begins by clarifying the phenomenality of the revelation of God, not as an object in the world illuminated by the light of the sun but as one apprehended in, by, and as God's own light: ‘in your light we see light’ (Ps. 35:10). The essay then examines, by way of Origen and Maximus, how the Transfiguration, as described in the Synoptic Gospels, provided the locus for understanding this luminous revelation in the face of Christ, as an anticipation of his resurrection. Far from being the inspiration for iconoclasm, as Georges Florovsky claimed, it is argued, on the basis of contemporary Russian art theorists regarding the relation between verbal and visual images, that Origen's exegetical tradition provided the basis for the iconic depictions of Christ and the saints.