Icon with the Virgin Hodegetria Dexiokratousa

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0:00:06.5 Dr. Steven Zucker: We’re at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a special exhibition, Africa and Byzantium, which has a number of icons that come from the monastery of Saint Catherine in the Sinai, this ancient monastery that holds one of the most important collections of icons.

0:00:24.0 Dr. Evan Freeman: This image refers to a particular icon known as the Virgin Hodegetria, which was held at a monastery in Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, and it was thought to be a miracle-working icon. At some point, it was attributed to Saint Luke himself. So the story went that this was an icon that had been painted by one of Christ’s followers of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child while they were alive, so it was a portrait. And in Constantinople, the Hodegetria icon, this miracle-working icon, was brought out of the Hodegon Monastery every Tuesday and processed through the city streets. And so it was a highly visible icon, and it became a beloved icon, and a widely venerated icon, so many copies of the Virgin Hodegetria icon were made. We see them throughout the Christian world, even beyond the Eastern Roman Empire, and so this is an example of this image.

0:01:13.4 Dr. Steven Zucker: The Hodegetria icon was accorded real power, in fact, so much so that when the city of Constantinople was under attack, reportedly, this had been brought up to the walls of the city in order to protect it.

0:01:26.5 Dr. Evan Freeman: The Byzantines spent a long time discussing and arguing about religious images, and there was a great controversy that occurred in 8th and 9th centuries, which centered in Constantinople, in which theologians, church officials, the Emperor, debated whether icons like this, whether images of God and of the saints should be allowed, whether these were useful for teaching and for religious devotion, or whether they were deceptive and problematic. The idea was that the icon was not the Virgin and Christ Child, but it was a way for people to direct their prayers to the Virgin and Christ Child, and in some sense, the image makes the holy figures present.

0:02:02.4 Dr. Steven Zucker: This is a mosaic. It’s made out of these little teeny pieces that are embedded in wax.

0:02:08.0 Dr. Evan Freeman: Mosaics are an ancient art form. We see the Romans using mosaics for floors. When the Roman Empire becomes Christian, the capital moves to Constantinople, today Istanbul, the Byzantines start putting mosaics on the walls and ceilings of churches. But here we see a new medium, which we call miniature mosaics or micromosaics, which appeared relatively late in Byzantine history, and instead of covering the walls and domes of churches, miniature mosaics are put on wooden panels so that they can be displayed in churches or used for private devotion and prayer.

0:02:41.5 Dr. Steven Zucker: And the labor required to produce something like this is astonishing.

0:02:46.4 Dr. Evan Freeman: Mosaics, in general, are one of the costliest art forms in the Eastern Roman Byzantine Empire. They’re associated with churches founded and decorated by emperors. They’re associated with elite patrons.

0:02:57.6 Dr. Steven Zucker: And if you look very closely at these minute tesserae, you can see how the artists so carefully placed one color against another.

0:03:05.7 Dr. Evan Freeman: Monumental mosaics on floors or in churches are meant to be viewed from far away, and they rely on that viewing from a distance to blend the colors together, the pixels, the tesserae disappear, and you see colors that look almost painted. With miniature mosaics, because these icons are meant to be viewed up close, the tesserae have to be much, much smaller. And we can see that in this icon, that these small tesserae are so carefully placed, and they do, they blend in a way that is almost painterly. There’s something that mosaics offer that painted images do not, and that is a liveliness, a reflective quality, a dynamic visual quality. It’s an image that is more alive.

0:03:43.2 Dr. Steven Zucker: There’s even another important aspect to mosaic, which is that the colors of these stones have not changed over time.

0:03:50.4 Dr. Evan Freeman: Paint fades, but mosaics retain their original color because you’re looking at individual pieces of stone and glass. And so this vividness of color that we see, and the lively effects of light bouncing off the individual tesserae, gives this really striking image. And we could see why elite patrons, why emperors and empresses, preferred this sort of medium in many cases when they could afford it.

0:04:11.5 Dr. Steven Zucker: So think about the process for making this. The basic composition would need to be worked out, but then all of this material would need to be sourced. They would need to be cut or broken into shape. Then they need to be very carefully placed. This is a wildly labor-intensive process.

0:04:28.1 Dr. Evan Freeman: Just imagine how much more quickly you could produce an image like this in paint. So this is an artwork created for someone at the highest levels of society.

0:04:36 Dr. Steven Zucker: And this expressed that person’s importance, but it’s also a means of expressing the importance of the subject, in this case, the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child.

0:04:46 Dr. Evan Freeman: We don’t know much about where this icon came from. It would be nice if there was an inscription that said something about the patron or the artist, but we simply don’t have that. The luxury medium makes us suspect that this may have been made in the capital, but we don’t know for sure. Images of the Virgin Hodegetria typically show the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child in one arm. Usually it’s her left arm, but in this case it’s her right arm, and using her other hand to gesture toward the Christ Child. Christ is shown typically holding a scroll, which may allude to the fact that he is the Logos of God. He is the Word of God. And with his right hand, he often holds up a blessing gesture toward the viewer or toward the Virgin.

0:05:25.4 Dr. Steven Zucker: Whereas Christ is divine and human, Mary is more fully human, more approachable, and so she became this bridge to Christ.

0:05:34.3 Dr. Evan Freeman: Mary, because she is Christ’s mother, has a special position. This is why Byzantine icons typically label the Virgin Mary the mother of God. And we see the Greek abbreviation for that here. And so if Byzantines wanted to direct their prayers to God, she was someone who could bring your prayers to him and he had to listen because she is his mother. Both of these figures are dressed in what looks like it could be imperial clothing. The Virgin wears beautiful blue and an outer purple mantle or maphorion. Christ wears a golden tunic. And in both cases, you can see these gorgeous gold highlights that glitter as you look at the icon. This is sometimes called chrysography. But the gold highlights and the glittering gold halos, the way that they are activated by light, and we might imagine how someone viewed them in the flickering light of a candle, which would reflect back, probably reinforced the Christian understanding of God as light. So we can imagine how icons like this, with their reflective light, actualized this Christian belief.

0:06:31.6 Dr. Steven Zucker: One of the most curious aspects of this particular icon is the beautiful sense of volume that is created by the modulation of light and shadow in the forms of the figures against the pattern of the background, which is emphatically two-dimensional. And that background is unusual.

0:06:48.4 Dr. Evan Freeman: This is one of several details that makes us wonder if this may be what is called a crusader icon. This icon has been dated to the first quarter of the 13th century. Constantinople fell to Latin crusaders from Western Europe in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade, and it was subsequently occupied by Western Europeans. So it’s possible that an icon like this was made by an artist from Western Europe, perhaps someplace like Venice, who was now living in Constantinople and who was in dialogue with the arts of the Eastern Roman Empire, but is also doing some things of their own.

0:07:21.3 Dr. Steven Zucker: On the other hand, some scholars think that perhaps this was made by a Byzantine artist in exile. We just simply don’t have that historical information. What we do have is this sparkling jewel of an object.

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Icons at the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai

Art and architecture of Saint Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai

Helen C. Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557) (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004).

Sharon E. J. Gerstel and Robert S. Nelson, editors, Approaching the Holy Mountain: Art and Liturgy at St Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2011).

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