19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 12 - Virgin of the Deliverance

Title: Virgin of the Deliverance
Artist: Ernest Hebert
Medium: Oil on panel
Size: 40.3 x 28.3 cm
Date: c. 1872
Location: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 12

In art, the term “The Madonna” is applied specifically to an artwork in which Mary, with or without the infant Jesus, is the focus and central figure of the picture. Mary and the infant may be surrounded by adoring angels or worshiping saints, however paintings which have a narrative content are usually given a title that reflects the scene. Half-length paintings of the Madonna and Child are also common in Italian Renaissance painting, particularly in Venice.

This painting is a variant based on a large-scale altarpiece that Hébert painted in time for the Salon of 1872 and that was finally installed in the church of his native town, La Tronche, the following year. Unlike the original altarpiece, which has a patterned background, this version is stylized to recall the conventions of Byzantine icons. The gold ground, raised haloes and Greek letters-mu, rho, theta, and upsilon: the abbreviation of "Maria Theotokos" (Mary God-bearer), often found in Byzantine mosaics-lend the painting a schematic flatness that contrasts dramatically with the otherwise convincingly three-dimensional figures.

Ernest Hebert (November 1817 - December 1908), sometimes known as Antoine Auguste Ernest Hebert, was a French painter and academic. Though he took drawing lessons from the age of ten from the French painter Benjamin Rolland, his father wished him to become a lawyer, and in 1834 he moved to Paris to study law. While there he also studied drawing and painting, and in 1839, the year he passed his law exams, he also won the Prix de Rome for his painting 'The Cup of Joseph Found in the Sack of Benjamin.' During his lifetime Hebert became one of the most highly regarded and decorated painters of his generation, winning medals at several "Expositions Universelles" (World's Fairs), and the Grande Croix of the Legion of Honor in 1903.

The True Vine

Title: The True Vine
Artist: Jodi Simmons
Medium: Tempera on panel.
Size: tbd.
Date: c. 2009
Location: Private Collection.

John 15:1-27 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other. If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’ When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

Jesus begins with the Gospel's final "I am" saying. The earlier sayings had focused on Jesus as the life-giver and had included an invitation to come to him and to believe in him. Now, however, Jesus is speaking to those who have already come to him, and so his charge is that they remain in him. The earlier theme of life is now developed in terms of intimate union with Jesus, a sharing in his own life. Thus, this is a fitting conclusion to the "I am" sayings. The image is not a parable, since it is not a story, but rather an extended metaphor. The main point of the image is clear enough: the disciple's very life depends on the intimate union of believers with Jesus. As branches, believers either bear fruit and are pruned to bear more fruit, or do not bear fruit and are thrown away and burned.

Jodi Simmons is a contemporary American icon painter, currently working from a studio in Massachusetts. In the eyes of traditional Eastern Orthodox icon artists, Jodi crosses over canonical boundaries in her handling of sacred subjects. Why, for example, is Christ shown so often without a beard? And what are all those geometric patterns, crisscrossing her panels? For Jodi, he is “the blueprint of all creation,” the fixed point in the circle of eternity from which lines radiate out in all directions, creating new shapes and forms, wherever they are intersected. More of her innovative work can be seen at http://sacredartpilgrim.com/collection/view/68 .

Mary with Her Son

Title: Mary with Her Son

Artist: Anonymous (Ethiopian)

Medium: Tempera on wood

Size: 38.1 x 44.44 cm

Date: late 17th century

Location: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

On this triptych the imposing figures of Mary and Her Son dominate the lower scene of Christ teaching the Apostles, who are seated in rows on the central panel and wings. The large, watchful eyes, always powerful in Ethiopian icons, are especially impressive here, as are the fine details of the speckled and jeweled robes.

The side panels of this triptych depict the Resurrection and Saint George, and the Crucifixion and Saint Mercurius. The resurrected Christ, seen at the upper left, holds a small cross as a symbol of victory over death.

Historically, Ethiopia was a Christian kingdom with strong ties in both trade and religion to the cultures located around the Mediterranean. Ethiopia's Christian tradition dates back to the 4th century, when the king of the Aksumite kingdom converted to Christianity; by the 15th century, this African nation had developed a tradition of icon painting that rivaled that of the Orthodox empires of Byzantium and Russia as well as the famed panel paintings of Renaissance Italy. This particular example dates from the late Solomonic Dynasty

Deësis mosaic (Christ Pantocrator)

Title: Deësis mosaic (Christ Pantocrator)
Artist: Unknown
Medium: Mosaic
Size: approx. 120 x 240cm
Date: c.1260
Location: Hagia Sophia, Istanbul.

This mosaic is found within the Hagia Sophia (Turkish: Ayasofya) a former patriarchal basilica in the city of Istanbul, Turkey. The original church on this site was constructed around 360 AD, but the current building did not receive many of its most beautiful works of art until after the Byzantine recapture of the city and the return to Orthodoxy in 1261.

In this Deësis (Greek: "supplication") mosaic the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist follow the Byzantine iconic motif imploring the intercession of Christ Pantocrator for humanity on Judgment Day. The most common translation of Pantocrator is "Almighty" or "All-powerful", and by the 4th century AD the title generally referred to Christ rather than the Creator. Pantocrator had come to suggest Christ as a mild but stern, all-powerful judge of humanity.

The Deësis mosaic is situated in the imperial enclosure of the upper galleries, and is widely considered the finest in Hagia Sophia. The mosaic is lain with astonishing exactness which can especially be seen in the many tiny tessellae making up the faces. A vast number of colors were used with the tessellae lain in a painterly fashion, brushstroke-like lines ending in arrow-shaped slivers of glass and stone. This exacting work creates a softness, with humane expressions close in style to that of the Italian painters of the late 13th century. The bottom part of this mosaic is badly deteriorated, probably due to wind and rain. For decades the huge windows to the left of the mosaic were often open, allowing the outside elements to pour in.