profound kind of seeing; it must manage to make the transition from what is merely external to the depth of reality, so that the artist sees what the senses as such do not see, even though it does appear in the objects of the senses: the splendor of God’s glory, the “glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:6).8 Looking at icons, and in general at the great masterpieces of Christian art, leads us on an interior way, a way of transcendence, and thus brings us, in this purification of sight that