Rules of the Sacred

Icon painting followed strict rules. Artists copied established prototypes inherited from earlier masters, using the colors, poses, and compositions that tradition prescribed. Innovation was discouraged, because an icon's power came from its link to a sacred original, not from the painter's own invention.

Within those limits, real genius was still possible. Andrei Rublev's Trinity (c. 1410) is regarded as the supreme achievement of the tradition, using three angels to represent the Trinity in a composition of extraordinary geometric harmony.