Theotokos Of Smolensk

Information about Theotokos Of Smolensk

A Dionisius version of the Theotokos of Smolensk (ca. 1500)

The shrine of the Hodegetria in Smolensk, as photographed by Prokudin-Gorsky in 1912.

The Hodegetria (Greek: Οδηγήτρια, literally: "She who shows the way"; Russian: Одигитрия) is the iconography depicting the Theotokos holding the child of Jesus Christ on her side while pointing at Him as the source of salvation for mankind. The most venerated icon of the Hodegetria type, regarded as the original, was displayed in the Monastery of the Panaghia Hodegetria in Constantinople, built specially to contain it. It was said to have been bought back from the Holy Land by Eudocia, the Empress of Theodosius II (408-50), and to have been painted by Saint Luke.^[1] The icon was double-sided^[2], with a crucifixion on the other side, and was "perhaps the most prominent cult object in Byzantium". ^[3]

Constantinople

There are a number of images showing the icon in its shrine and in the course of being displayed publicly, which happened every Tuesday, and was one of the great sights of Constantinople for visitors. It was moved to the monastery of the Pantocrator, the base of the Venetian see, from 1204-1261, during the period of Frankish rule, and since none of the illustrations of the shrine at the Hodegetria monastery predate this interlude, the shrine may have been created after its return. ^[4].

There are a number of accounts of the weekly display, the two most detailed by Spaniards: "Every Tuesday twenty men come to the church of Maria Hodegetria; they wear long red linen garments^[5], covering up their heads like stalking clothes ... there is a great procession and the men clad in red go one by one up to the icon; the one with whom the icon is pleased is able to take it up as if it weighed almost nothing. He places it on his shoulder and they go chanting out of the church to a great square, where the bearer of the icon walks with it from one side to the other,going fifty times around the square. When he sets it down then others take it up in turn."^[6] Another account says the bearers staggered around the crowd, the icon seeming to lurch towards onlookers, who were then considered blessed by the Virgin. Clergy touched pieces of cotton-wool to the icon and handed them out to the crowd. A wall-painting in a church near Arta in Greece, shows a great crowd watching such a display, whilst a street-market for unconcerned locals continues in the foreground.^[7]

The Hamilton Psalter picture of the shrine in the monastery appears to show the icon behind a golden screen of large mesh, mounted on brackets rising from a four-sided pyramidal base, like many large medieval lecterns. The heads of the red-robed attendants are level with the bottom frame of the icon.^[8] The icon appears to have disappeared during the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 when it was deposited at the Saint Saviour in Chora. It may have been cut into four pieces^[9].

Spread of the image

This image developed, or became more widely used, in the 10th century, after the period of iconoclasm in Byzantine art from an earlier type where the Virgin's right hand was on Christ's knee.^[10] An example of the former type is the Salus Populi Romani icon in Rome. Many versions carry the inscription "Hodegetria" in the background and in the Byzantine context "only these named versions were understood by their medieval audience as conscious copies of the original Hodegetria in the Hogedon monastery", according to Maria Vasilakē.^[11]

Full-length versions, both probably made by Greek artists, appear in mosaic in the Cathedral at Torcello (11th century) and the Cappella Palatina, Palermo (c. 1150), this last with the "Hodegetria" inscription. ^[12]

From the Hodegetria developed the "Virgin of Tender Mercy", where Mary still indicates Christ, but he is nuzzling her cheek, which she slightly inclines towards him; famous versions include the Theotokos of Vladimir and the Theotokos of St. Theodore. Usually Christ is on the left in these images.

Hodegetria of Smolensk

The Russians, however, believe that after the fall of Constantinople, St. Luke's icon surfaced in Russia, where it was placed in the Assumption Cathedral of Smolensk. On several occasions, it was brought with great ceremony to Moscow, where the Novodevichy Convent was built in her honour. Her feast day is August 10.

This miraculous icon, dated by art historians to the 11th century, is believed to have been destroyed by fire during the German occupation of Smolensk in 1941. A number of churches all over Russia are dedicated to the Smolensk Hodegetria, e.g., the eponymous monastery in Vyazma and the Odigitrievsky Cathedral in Ulan-Ude.

Notable examples

Black Madonna of Częstochowa

Full-length mosaic by Greek artists, Torcello, 12th century

The Theotokos of Tikhvin (ca. 1300)

The Theotokos of Perilevptos (ca. 1350)

References

Cormack, Robin (1997). Painting the Soul; Icons, Death Masks and Shrouds. Reaktion Books, London.

1. ^ James Hall, A History of Ideas and Images in Italian Art, p.91, 1983, John Murray, London, ISBN 0719539714
2. ^ Vasilakē; op & page cit
3. ^ Cormack:58
4. ^ Cormack:58
5. ^ perhaps a lay confraternity - they are shown inside the shrine in a manuscript illumination in the Hamilton Psalter of c. 1300 (Berlin), Cormack illustration 9
6. ^ Cormack:59-61 - Pero Tafur in 1437
7. ^ Cormack: illustration p.60
8. ^ Cormack:61 for display, 58 and illustration 9 for shrine
9. ^ Warren Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society, Stanford, 1997 ISBN-10: 0804726302. Four pieces from Cormack:59
10. ^ Maria Vasilakē; Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium,p.196, Ashgate publishing Co, Burlington, Vermont, ISBN 07546 3603 8
11. ^ Vasilakē; op and page cit
12. ^ James Hall, A History of Ideas and Images in Italian Art, p.126, 1983, John Murray, London, ISBN 0719539714

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Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", or painting, and comes from the Greek
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