Ιταλοκρητική εικόνα με την Άκρα Ταπείνωση και τους αγίους Ιωάννη τον Πρόδρομο και Γεράσιμο
Part of : Δελτίον της Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας ; Vol.42, 2003, pages 281-292
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281-292
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An Italo-Cretan Icon of Christ Man of Sorrows with Sts John the Baptist and Gerasimos
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Articles
Abstract:
R Byzantine period. In the composition, which is developed on a vertical axis, Christ, with broad chest and body but thin arms, is depicted in front of a voluminous wooden Cross. In Western painting Christ is flanked by the Virgin and St John the Theologian. The increase in the number of figures has a direct effect on the organization of the composition, which is developed along a horizontal axis rather than a vertical one as in the earlier works. The three-figured version is adopted in the Byzantine Museum icon, but the Virgin and the Theologian have been replaced by St John the Baptist and St Gerasimos respectively. The expressive means used in rendering the Baptist, such as the pose of genuflecting on one knee (Fig. 4), are influenced by Italian painting. The identification of the other saint as Gerasimos (Fig. 6) poses problems. In Byzantine and Postepresented on the icon Τ 227 (41 x60 cm) in the Byzantine and Christian Museum are Christ Man of Sorrows with Sts John the Baptist and Gerasimos (Fig. 1). At the centre, Christ stands within a rose-purple marble larnax, his hands, with the marks of the nails, crossed low down. Behind him looms the massive wooden Cross with three nails and a deltos with the Latin initials in Gothic characters V.N.R.I. The Lord is flanked by two saints identified by titular inscriptions, left Ο Ar(IOC) IQ(ANNHC) Ο BAnTICTHC, and right Ο A(riOC) TEPACIMOC. In the upper part of the icon, two angels, in smaller scale, lament with gestures denoting their grief. The theme of Christ Man of Sorrows, which was devised as a visual and timeless statement of the Holy Passion, was widely diffused during the Late Byzantine and the Early Post Byzantine painting St Gerasimos the Jordanite has the features of an old man and is accompanied by a lion. The lion is, however, also an attribute of Hieronymus, a saint of the Western Church. The revival of his cult in Italy, from the mid-fourteenth century, resulted in a proliferation of representations of him in Italian art, a phenomenon which is also reflected in regions then under Latin rule. As in the icon here (Fig. 6), the saint is invariably depicted half-naked and kneeling before the Crucified Christ, in miniature, holding a stone and accompanied by a lion. From these iconographie elements, the figure on the right of the Byzantine Museum icon can be identified securely as Hieronymus. The combination of the two major ascetics, the Precursor and Hieronymus, is not without precedent in both Italian and Cretan painting, as can be seen, for example, in the composite icon in the Canellopoulos Museum (Fig. 8). In the present icon, the figures of Christ (Fig. 2) and St John the Baptist (Fig. 4), with the dark under layer and the wellmodelled flesh, have distinctive facial features - slanting eyes, pronounced cheek bones and prominent noses -which are encountered in works by Cretan painters of the second half of the fifteenth century, such as Nikolaos Tzafouris and Andreas Pavias. The figure of Christ displays similarities to its counterpart in the icon in the Saroglou Collection, also in the Byzantine and Christian Museum (Fig. 3). The close iconographie affinity between the two figures suggests the use of a common working drawing (anthibolon) for both works. This hypothesis is reinforced by the virtually identical style of the two icons. The iconographie type of Hieronymus, with the well-drawn features, the plasticity in modelling the volumes of the flesh, the robust body, the naturalistic rendering of anatomical details and the fluid drapery with abundant over-folds, bears witness to pronounced influences from Italian painting of the second half of the fifteenth century (Fig. 7), and in particular the œuvre of Giovanni Bellini (1431-1516). The eclectic disposition of the painter of the icon of Christ Man of Sorrows, the gentle drawing, the refined figures, the well-burnished gold ground, the flawless execution and the aura of luxury the work emanates as a whole, bespeak an accomplished painter who was active in the years around 1500. Certain details, such as the facial features of Christ and the Forerunner, the angels rending their robes and mourning, the similar form of the larnax to that in the threezone icon in the Geneva Museum, lead us to suggest that the unknown artist of the Byzantine Museum icon was familiar with the work of the Cretan painter Andreas Pavias and possibly trained in his workshop. The choice of the two saints, John the Baptist and Hieronymus, in the icon, which was presumably dictated by the commissioner, refers to a highly educated milieu in which there was excellent knowledge of the symbolisms, profounder meanings and ideological ramifications of the personality of the Western saint. If this hypothesis is correct, then the icon in the Byzantine Museum was a personal request from a cultivated nobleman, possibly of Candia, who was associated with pro-Unionist and Humanist circles in Crete, a view that is confirmed by the fact that the combination of the subject Christ Man of Sorrows with Sts John the Baptist and Hieronymus was not repeated.
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