1438
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Icon of the Mother of God and Infant Christ (Virgin Eleousa) is a 1438 unspecified by Angelos Akotantos, a Byzantine icon painting work, depicting Crete, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see Mary holding baby Jesus cheek-to-cheek, their faces almost touching. The gold background glows like candlelight in a dark church. This painting hung on a wooden screen that kept worshippers from seeing the altar. Only priests could pass behind it. The artist lived on Crete when the island was ruled by Venice, yet he painted in the older Byzantine style—soft faces, rich folds in the robes. To see how Byzantine art changed under Venetian rule, look up the kingdom of candia.
This large icon of a tender embrace between the Virgin Mary and Christ likely hung on a Greek Orthodox church’s iconostasis, a screen separating the congregation from the altar-containing sanctuary, which only clergy could enter. A skilled painter of faces and draperies, Angelos Akotantos was among Crete’s most sought-after artists. Based in Byzantium’s artistic center in his hometown of Candia, he painted for imperial clients and beyond. Despite theological differences, Cretan icons of Mary were popular in Ethiopia. In the early 1500s, Emperor Lebna Dengel sent monks Zekre and Pawli to…
This is the only known work by Angelos Akotantos in the United States.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Angelos Akotantos (Greek: Άγγελος Ακοτάντος; 1390–1457) was a Greek painter, educator, and protopsaltis.
See the richer artist pageYour cart is empty
Explore artworks →
