Cretan painting was deeply rooted in Byzantine style and iconography, and therefore deeply associated with the Byzantine painted icon tradition. As a celebrated figure of both Cretan painting and subsequently associated with the later Venetian Renaissance, El Greco was familiar with the traditional icon type as well as modernized renditions of Christian themes. Tintoretto was a sixteenth-century pioneer of this modern interpretation, and as a Mannerist artist was known for his dramatic compositions and use of coloring. El Greco took part in this Mannerist shift in aesthetic upon arriving in Venice in the mid-sixteenth century. Between 1570 and 1572, Tintoretto painted an oil on canvas version of Madonna and Child scene depicting Mary and Jesus in a barn, presumably just moments after Jesus’ birth. St. Francis Venerating the Crucifix, an oil on canvas painted by El Greco in 1595, depicts St. Francis kneeling in front of a crucifix, skull, and bible. Using Tintoretto’s Madonna and Child and El Greco’s St. Francis Venerating the Crucifix as primary examples, this paper will explore the changeability of devotional requirements based on thematic modifications and the establishment of sacred space.
The icon tradition was heavily associated with Byzantium and the eastern parts of the Venetian Empire, and was a constant source of inspiration for painters of religious imagery, especially for Venetians after the Fourth Crusade, which resulted in the plundering of objects from the eastern Empire in 1204. Icons are noted for their replicability which reinforces their status of holiness. The first icon of the Virgin Mary and Child is claimed to have been painted by St. Luke in the fifth century, an event later captured by El Greco in his 1567 work, St. Luke Painting the Virgin and Child. In this image, St. Luke sits in front of a traditional Hodegetria-style painted Madonna and Child with his palette. His visage is lost to us, but the proximity of his hand to the image of the Virgin Mary emphasizes and resembles the proximity of her hand to her baby Jesus. As she motions to her son as the son of God and savior of man, the relationship constituted between St. Luke and the Virgin Mary by his hand affirms her place as a worshipped figure, signifying her status as an icon and creating a sense of veneration both within the painting by St. Luke and the larger composition by El Greco. By the time El Greco painted this in 1567, the iconographic tradition had changed greatly since the fifth century, especially in Venice by artists such as Tintoretto and Giovanni Bellini.
Iconography and artistic tradition alter with time and repetition and are often modified to suit contemporary styles and artists. Though repetition of an image reinforces its sanctity, images can change their aesthetic aspects while retaining their sacred quality, becoming a hybrid of new qualities and recognizable imagery. One such image that has altered over time is the icon of the Madonna and Child, and it is for this reason that art historians are unable to determine exactly what the “original” image of the Virgin Mary looked like. Madonna and Child by Tintoretto rejects the rigidity of icon types like the Hodegetria type in favor of a more organic intrapersonal relationship between the two figures. Tintoretto’s figures of Mary and baby Jesus are more asymmetrical than images such as the Virgin Nicopeia, and their faces less immediate than in the Hodegetria type where it is suggested that the image’s power stems from its frontal nature. In Tintoretto’s painting, Jesus is being held in a more natural and conventional way which creates a greater sense of intimacy between him and his mother. Though Tintoretto’s image does not mimic the Hodegetria type, the devotional image of Mary holding a baby Jesus establishes a relation to the image prototype such as the image of Madonna and Child in El Greco’s Saint Luke Painting the Virgin and Child. Despite any compositional changes that alienate Tintoretto’s figures from El Greco’s acquaintance with the traditional Byzantine type, Mary wears red and blue garments as a familiar way of identifying and framing her in iconographic tradition. As recognized in other works, attending figures were often a popular addition to this scene, but Tintoretto decided to forgo this figural modification in favor of a smaller, more intimate moment shared by a mother and child. Compared to images interpreted with other figures such as Joseph and St. Anne, the two-figure composition cites a smaller devotional requirement as Mary and Jesus are the only two figures that require veneration. They are the only two essential to this theme, and added figures demand a greater devotional obligation.
In a composition similarly void of secondary figures, the image of St. Francis painted by El Greco is meant as both a devotional image to St. Francis himself as one of the most venerated saints, and to Christ through St. Francis’ physical and spiritual Imitatio Christi. Having not yet received the stigmata, St. Francis is depicted praying on his knees, devoting himself to Christ and to his practice of Catholicism. The efficacy of the devotional aspect of this image is due to the emotional capacity of the work, and the ability of the figure of St. Francis to effectively translate emotion. Within the narrative of St. Francis he is suffering and starving, manifesting in his hollow cheeks and tired eyes, as he looks to his faith for fulfillment. The effect of this suffering is emotional agency. Here, St. Francis is quietly kneeling, praying in a pose that devotees of this image would have replicated. In this way, a devotee can identify with St. Francis as they would have often worshipped the same objects as in the painting as he does, but through his Imitatio Christi, they can also identify with Christ himself, knowing that St. Francis would bear the wounds of Christ’s passion and in essence, become Christ. In this way, art brings the profane closer to the divine and allows devotional practice to bridge that gap.
Created space can also reinforce an image’s devotional requirement. Tradition expects religious citation, so in this way, an image of the Madonna and Child in a barn, like Tintoretto’s rendition, offers a more traditional narrative and simplified space than an image like Giovanni Bellini’s Madonna di Brera where the setting does not offer direct religious citation. In Bellini’s Madonna di Brera, Mary and her son are placed in a landscape setting in front of a green cloth that acts like a baldachin or throne for the figures. This baldachin separates Mary and Jesus from their surroundings as opposed to integrating the figures into their spatial surroundings. They are completely separated from the background, and therefore the figures exist almost on their own, without any further narrative context. The profane and the sacred remain completely segregated, and the vast background draws attention away from their holy status and distances them from an immediate devotional setting. The reluctance by Tintoretto to replicate a somewhat irrelevant background creates a more harmonious composition focused on the figures within the narrative of the Nativity, placing them in a distinct biblical frame of reference. The created space around the figures allows for an extension of their holiness throughout the composition as there is no divide between profane and sacred space. The physical surroundings of Mary and Jesus, as it is so intimately tied to biblical narrative, intensifies the sanctity of the image. The act of picking up the hay in the barn builds a material connection between the figures and the space and integrates them within their setting. The hay surrounding both figures not only contributes to the greater narrative, but its golden color could also be an interpretation of the gold used in the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine icon traditions, furthering the identification of the figures as iconic in a holistic way that Bellini does not achieve in his composition.
In the same way that Tintoretto’s Madonna and Child offers an intimate scene in a narratively relevant space, El Greco’s cropped composition enhances the devotional aspect of the piece by offering physical intimacy. In an interpretation of St. Francis such as Giovanni Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert, St. Francis is part of a larger composition of architecture and natural stone structure. It primarily frames the landscape rather than the figure of St. Francis, and he becomes engulfed by his surroundings. The zoomed out composition takes away the expressive nature that El Greco’s St. Francis is able to render, and therefore inhibits a strong emotional connection. Like the comparison between Tintoretto’s and Bellini’s interpretations of the Madonna and Child theme, Bellini’s St. Francis is situated in a background that draws attention away from the figure as an icon and situates him within a profane space that prioritizes his relationship to his surroundings over his relationship to his devotional practice and objects of worship. In El Greco’s St. Francis, the entirety of the composition can be considered sacred space as it is filled by his body in the midst of emotional devotional practice, and the background, though still defining the proper desert setting, is devalued, limited, and does not hinder the sanctity of the scene. The objects in front of him comprise a constructed altar, emphasizing the essentiality of veneration within the painting, and the subsequent veneration by devotees who stand before it.
The relationship of materiality and immateriality are important when analyzing setting and devotional requirements. The material aspects of a composition can enhance or inhibit sanctity through the power of formulated tactility. Power can come through materiality. Perhaps the aspect of materiality in devotional imagery can be exemplified best through El Greco’s St. Francis Venerating the Crucifix, as the objects in the composition have a distinct religious and devotional value. However, icon worship is not the same as object worship. The Madonna and Child scene would be an example of icon worship because what is being worshipped are the Virgin Mary and Jesus manifested in oil paint. It is not the material aspect of the painting itself, the canvas or the paint, that is being worshipped, nor is it the tactile objects in the image, the cloth or hay. There is no relic associated with this image or attribute represented. It is the immaterial divine, and what the image is a stand-in for, that is worshipped.
In St. Francis Venerating the Crucifix, St. Francis is similarly being devotionally admired through the manifestation of his person on canvas, as the worship of his image is worship of him by proxy. Object worship is represented in the objects located in front of St. Francis: the crucifix, skull, and bible. In the title itself St. Francis is not venerating only the image of Christ on the crucifix, but the crucifix itself, shifting practice from immaterial to material worship. Icon worship is a more direct devotional path than idolatry, as the material aspect of the object can inhibit the presence of the immaterial divine. While both images have non-human material aspects, the material presence in Madonna and Child prioritizes the icon, while the material presence in St. Francis Venerating the Crucifix reveals a specific devotional requirement related to object worship that does not allow St. Francis to exist solely as an icon within this space.
Icons have been a long-standing tradition in the Catholic church as objects of devotion and veneration and their style and representation have altered over time. The poignant devotional aspects of an iconographic image are dependant on assorted compositional variables. For Tintoretto’s Madonna and Child and El Greco’s St. Francis Venerating the Crucifix, these aspects are reliant on a limited number of figures and a close composition of sacred space, allowing for the most effective devotional practice.
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