1media/Byzantineicon_thumb.jpeg2021-12-13T06:16:19-08:00Grace Acquilanoad12acac80b0839e0f2c253b2422dad8a8d867c2394473Icon with the Virgin and Child, 1300–1350, made in Constantinople. Egg tempera on wood with gold leaf, 40 13/16 x 33 1/16 in. Image courtesy of the Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens, no. 1354plain2023-01-25T17:33:22-08:00Brooke Hendershottb0a907cd0f989ee79e94592378a1545647719cfb
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12021-11-03T13:49:52-07:00What is this?31plain2023-01-23T07:19:45-08:00By Grace Acquilano '22 “The Virgin and Child” is a tempera on wood panel painting that depicts the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus. This and similar paintings “emerge from a genuine interchange of religious beliefs and artistic ideas among the Byzantine, the crusader, and the central Italian artists and their patrons” (Nelson 281). This image evokes the importance of icon veneration in Byzantium and suggests an icon’s function to serve as a connection between Earth and Heaven. Icons are sacred images that represent the Virgin, Jesus, and saints that have been authorized by the Christian church.
This painting depicts one of the most universal subjects in Christianity, which is Mary holding baby Jesus close to her breast. This subject is understood to have been originally painted by St. Luke and became known as the icon of the Virgin and Child “Hodegetria” in Byzantium. "This configuration of Mary and Jesus’ bodies was adapted and transformed into a new cult image of the Virgin by the Crusades and certain central Italian painters” (Nelson 280). The configuration of Mary holding Jesus against her chest demonstrates that Mary is both the human mother of Jesus on Earth as well as the eternal Queen of Heaven.
