Double Sided Icon of the Virgin of the Burning Bush and the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple
From AudreyWiki
| Artist: | Anonymous (Russian) |
| Created: | ca. 1590-1605 AD |
| Medium: | tempera and gold on panel |
| Dimensions: | 9 5/8 x 7 1/2 x 5/16 in. (24.5 x 19 x 0.8 cm) |
| Credit Line: | Museum purchase with funds provided by the W. Alton Jones Foundation Acquisition Fund, 1994 |
| Accession No.: | 37.2664 |
| Description: | One side of the icon depicts the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple. The other side contains one of the earliest surviving images of The Virgin of the Burning Bush. |
| Culture: | Russian |
| Period: | Early Modern |
| Country: | Russia |
| Style: | Stroganov School |
Contents |
History of the Object
This early-seventeenth-century Russian icon is said to have been kept in an unknown church in Jerusalem. It most probably arrived there as a gift from a Russian tsar, possibly Boris Godunov (de facto regent 1584-1598, r. 1588-1605). Godunov is known to have endowed churches under Muslim rule (from 1517 to 1918, Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman Empire). The subdued palate, delicate figures, and fantastical architectural background of the two panels are typical of the so-called Stroganov School of icon-painting, which flourished around the turn of the seventeenth century. [1]
The Icon
The Virgin of the Burning Bush
From the early centuries of Christianity onwards, Moses’ vision of the burning bush at Mount Sinai (Exod. 3:1-5) was interpreted as a prefigurement of the Incarnation.[2] As the bush was engulfed in flames but was not burned, so the Virgin held in her womb the flame of Christ’s divinity but was not consumed and was able to remain a virgin.[3]
The earliest depictions of the Burning Bush in Christian art, such as the sixth-century mosaic at the Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai, contain images only of Moses and the Bush, with no pictorial references to its connection with the Virgin.[4] It was in the twelfth century that artists began to illustrate the connection between the Incarnation and the Burning Bush in varied compositions linking Christ or the Virgin with Moses’ vision. During the Latin occupation of the Holy Land (1099-1187) Sinai and the Monastery of St. Catherine received scores of pilgrims and Burning-Bush imagery spread through the Christian world. Famous examples include, in the West, a Visitation scene in Chartres Cathedral in which a statue of Mary rests on a stand in the form of the Burning Bush and in the East, a fresco in the Chapel of Saint James at Mount Sinai in which the Virgin appears with her robes covered in burning branches.[5]
Russian images of the Virgin as the Burning Bush are first attested in the mid-sixteenth century.[6] The new composition was part of a general shift in Russian icon-painting: from the simple images of Christ and the saints found on early icons (believed to copy their authentic portraits and intended as aids to prayer) toward increasingly complex “theological-didactic” imagery illustrating in a symbolic form liturgical texts and theological ideas. The Russian metropolitan Macarius took advantage of a fire in 1547 that destroyed most of the icons in the churches of the Moscow Kremlin to implement a large-scale introduction of new compositions: masters from Pskov and Novgorod were invited to the capital to repaint the churches, and their innovative iconography soon attracted considerable attention. The head of the tsar’s foreign affairs office, Ivan Viskovatyi, objected to several of the new compositions, especially those including images of God the Father and to allegorical images such as the Virgin of the Burning Bush, seeing in them Western scholasticism and “Latin sophistry.” A controversy known as the “Viskovatyi Affair” simmered for several years until it was at least nominally resolved in favor of the metropolitan at a Church council in 1554. [7]
The icon of the Virgin of the Burning Bush from the Moscow Kremlin, most probably the first example of this composition, is no longer preserved. The oldest surviving examples come from the Church of the Birth of the Virgin of the St. Therapon (Ferapontov) Monastery and from the Church of the Virgin Hodegetria in Rostov. The earliest precisely dated example is the 1567-1568 icon “The Birth of Christ with Scenes from the Earthly Life of Christ and Feasts,” by Dionysius Grinkov. A handful of further such icons, painted in the style of various regional schools, survives from the second half of the sixteenth and first years of the seventeenth century. [8] The icon in the Walters collection, dating to the 1590s or early 1600s, therefore belongs to the early, formative stage in the history of the composition.
In the center of the Walters icon is an image of the Virgin and Child, based on the standard Hodegetria type. It differs from traditional Hodegetria icons, such as the "Tikhvin Mother of God", chiefly in the position of the Virgin’s head, which here is turned away from Christ. Because of this, the viewer’s eye follows Mary's rightward gaze to the cloud of angels surrounding her. The direction of the Virgin’s pointing finger is also unusual: she does not gesture to the child but touches an object in her arms, perhaps a fold of Christ’s garment. In other examples of the composition she raises her hand in blessing, touches Jesus’s leg, or holds one of the symbolic objects enclosed in her arms. The Virgin’s dark-red garment is painted toward its lower edge with white wavy lines: a representation of clouds, in reference to Isaiah 19:1: “Behold, the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud…” Above these clouds, on her forehead and shoulder, are medallions with human faces in profile, perhaps personifications of heavenly bodies. The Christ child sits on his mother’s left arm in regal dignity, richly dressed, at a more straight angle than in most Hodegetria icons. He holds a scroll in one hand and raises the other in blessing.
Against her chest the Virgin holds several objects of symbolic significance. The first is a ladder: a reference to Jacob’s vision (Gen. 28:11-19) and a symbol of Mary’s role as a link between the heavenly and earthly realms. At the top of the ladder is a red medallion representing the sun, in which is the face of a young king. (In theological and liturgical texts Christ is often named the “Sun of Righteousness,” in reference to Malachi 4:2: “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings…”)[9] This visual metaphor also connects with the comparison of the Virgin with a cloud: Mary is the “cloud of unwaning light” through which the sun shines,[10] or else heaven, “for [she has] made the Sun of Righteousness to dawn forth” [11] The sun medallion is more distinct in some other icons of the same composition, such as this nineteenth-century example. In the Walters icon, the medallion closely resembles the other small disks with human faces on the Virgin’s garment; in yet other icons the three discs are identical, without faces in them.[12] Some scholars believe that the face on the medallion is in fact King Solomon[13] but the orb’s appearance as a simple disk of light in some icons seems to support the sun theory. Behind her right hand Mary holds a mountain, one of her more common symbols, a reference to Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Dan 2:31-45) of a stone cut off a mountain without human hands, interpreted by Christian thinkers as a reference to the virgin birth.[14] In icons, mountains also symbolize asceticism and spiritual ascent. Above the mountain is a walled city containing an image of Christ as the High Priest (Hebrews 6:20). The city is probably Jerusalem, or the Heavenly Jerusalem, which Matthew called “the city of the great king” (Matt. 5:35), and Zechariah referred to as the city in which the house of God will be built (Zech 1:16). The pairing of the city and the mountain is significant: the Old Testament often pairs Mount Zion and Jerusalem (e.g. Isaiah 24:23; Isaiah 2:2-3), and the New Testament proclaims that “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid” (Matt. 5:14). Mary’s hands, then, are full of symbols of the juncture between heaven and earth: the ladder on which angels pass, a mountain symbolizing spiritual ascent, the heavenly Jerusalem (representing the Church), and finally, a symbol of Christ himself. Each of these objects simultaneously refers to Mary herself as an intercessor for humanity in the heavenly realm and as a vehicle of the Incarnation, through which God descended from heaven to earth.
The Virgin and Child are surrounded by a complex, eight-pointed aureole composed of two overlapping rhombi. The form of the aureole is usually considered to have been copied from the composition “Christ in Majesty”; D.S. Golovkova, however, notes that the double-rhombus aureole had been used for icons of the Virgin of the Sign at least since Theophanes the Greek’s murals in the Church of the Transfiguration in Novgorod (1378).[15] The use of the red rhombus with the symbols of the four evangelists in the corners, at least, is a direct borrowing from the Christ in Majesty composition. The use of this particular form of aureole, usually reserved for Christ, connects the Virgin closely with the divine mystery of the Incarnation. The star-like form may also be meant to suggest the narrative of the Nativity (Matt 2:1-12); part of the inscription around the edges of the aureole (“He that was begotten of the Father before the morning star without a mother, is today on earth become incarnate of thee without a father…”) comes from a liturgical hymn that continues, “… wherefore, a star announceth the good tidings to the Magi; and the Angles with shepherds hymn thy seedless childbirth, O Full of Grace.”[16]
As mentioned above, the four figures in the red rhombus, corresponding to the four beasts that surround the throne of God in the Book of Revelation (Rev. 4:6-11), represent the evangelists. Matthew is shown as an angel, Mark as an eagle, John as a lion, and Luke as an ox. Each beast holds a gospel. The red color of the rhombus represents the flames of the bush.
In most other icons of this composition the other rhombus is green, representing the leaves of the bush. It is possible that the green paint of this icon has faded to brown, or it may be that the brown has some symbolic significance that differs from other similar icons; it may, for instance, be an additional reference to the mountain from the Book of Daniel. This rhombus is filled with representations of heavenly powers, as are the clouds that surround the aureole. The accompanying inscriptions identify the elements and other natural forces over which the angelic courtiers of the Virgin (who is the Queen of Heaven) hold sway. In medeival Russia there was a widespread belief that various angels controlled the natural elements; this belief probably owns its origin to a short ‘’Commentary on the Book of Genesis’’ by Epiphanius of Salamis and known in Russia since the eleventh century.[17] There was also a widespread association, especially among farmers, of Mary herself and the natural world, purportedly based on the common importance of the generative powers of the Virgin and the earth. Peasants attributed to the Virgin power over thunder, rain, and the harvest, and one seventeenth-century account even describes the Virgin as threatening to hurl down burning rocks, ice, fiery lightening, and general disaster if Christians did not properly observe the holy days.[18] In fact, it was arguably the folk belief in a connection between the Burning Bush icon and natural disasters that fueled the composition’s increasing popularity: many believed that icons of the Burning Bush could protect against fire and lightning, as seen in the painting Fire by N.S. Matveyev.[19]
The iconographer further seeks to establish important links between the Old and New Testaments, and between history and its mystical meaning, in the four Old Testament scenes in the corners of the icon. At the top left is the key scene of the composition, the episode from the Book of Exodus in which Moses encounters the bush. Moses is shown kneeling on Mount Horeb (Sinai), eyes on the angel of the Lord who “appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush” (Ex 3:2). Inside the bush is a bust of the Virgin, with Christ Emmanuel against her chest, a symbol of the Incarnation. Moses is about to be instructed by God to lead his people out of captivity in Egypt, just as Christ lead humanity out of captivity to sin and death.
At the top right is Isaiah’s prophesy that “there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots” (Is 11:1). This prophecy is interpreted as referring to the Incarnation of Christ. A similar phrase in Hosea (Hos 14:5) refers to a root cast forth, and it is in fact this less-famous verse that is referenced in the inscription on the icon.
At the lower left is a depiction of Ezekiel’s vision of the closed door of the Temple, interpreted as referring to the virginity of Mary:
- Then he brought me back the way of the gate of the outward sanctuary which looketh toward the east; and it was shut. Then said the Lord unto me; This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. It is for the prince; the prince, he shall sit in it to eat bread before the Lord; he shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate, and shall go out by the way of the same. (Ez 44:1-3)
God is portrayed here as Christ, as identified by the form of his halo and the letters “IC XC”, a Greek abbreviation for “Jesus Christ.”
The fourth corner image portrays Jacob’s dream of a ladder stretching from earth to heaven, with angels ascending and descending upon it (Gen 28:11-12). At the top of the ladder is a medallion with Christ Emmanuel, raising his hand in blessing. The diagonals of the ladder in this corner and the ladder in the Virgin’s arms are almost parallel.
The feast day of the icon of the Virgin of the Burning Bush is September 4, feast day of the prophet Moses.
Inscriptions Around the Virgin of the Burning Bush
Along the edges of the large star-shaped halo: Иже преже деньницы ωто ω(τ)ца без мате[ре родивыйся, на земли без отца] воплотися днесь из тебе. Д[ева] чистая во (чреве) прииме[т]. / С нами совокупися и воѧею [sc. волею] прете(р)пяи твари всея творецъ, в наше естество ωбновлеи/ся [sc. оболкся] на небеси неωтлучи распяти(ем) сина с(воего) искупи ωт работы дъявoля страш(ныя), / раби мрак (?) искупуя родъ (нашъ) ωт древныя клятвы, якоже пророцы прорекоша: Моисѣи купину прорече, Исаия (з)дательницу Божию, Езекилъ непроходимую дверь, Иωсия корень израсти, Давъидъ прекрасную полату и градъ ωдуш/евленъ, Соломонъ премудрости храмъ изрече, Данил камень ωт неωткомыя горы, Гедеωнъ [р]уно нeoро[шенное], / (Аро)нъ жезлъ прозябши, Аввакумъ гору б(о)жию приωсѣ(не)ну, Ияковъ лѣствицу духовную, / м_итра ωдушевленнъихь, (Захария) градь царя великаго Христа Б(о)га н[ашег]о. – He that was begotten of the Father before the morning star without a mother, is today on earth become incarnate of thee without a father. A pure virgin shall conceive in her womb. The Creator of all creation became one with us and voluntarily suffered, clothing Himself in our nature. The inseparable [Father] in heaven redeemed [us] through the crucifixion of His Son from the devil’s terrible yoke and the darkness of slavery (?), redeeming our race from the ancient curse, just as the prophets had foretold: Moses foretold a [burning] bush, Isaiah – a woman giving birth to God (7:14), Ezekiel – an impassable gate (44:2), Hosea – a root cast forth (14:5), David – a beautiful palace and animate city, Solomon – the house of wisdom (Proverbs 9:1), Daniel – a stone from an inviolate mountain (2:34), Gideon – a fleece untouched by dew (Judges 6:40), Aaron – a flowering rod (Numbers 17:8), Habakkuk – a mountain overshadowed by the Lord (3:3), Jacob – a spiritual ladder (Genesis 28:12), [?], Zechariah – a city of the great King Christ our God (9:9, cf. Psalm 48:2).
In the central star, clockwise from the top center: (1) Херувимъ - Cherubim. (2) Изводяи ωт сокровищь своих в[ѣтры] – Bringing the wind out of his treasuries (Psalm 135:7). (3) Ангел хранитель приноситъ слезы и покаяни(е) с милостынею и лю[б]овию – A guardian angel (who) brings tears and repentance, together with charity and love. (4) Ангель госпо[день при]носитъ _аволокъ, [моли]тву и кадило ...... ωт человека – An angel of the Lord, (who) brings [?], prayer and a censer … from man. (5) Постави знамение чюдно на небеси дуги, заветъ между господомъ и ч(е)л(о)в(е)к(и) – He set up a wondrous sign of the (rain)bow upon the sky, a covenant between the Lord and men (Genesis 9:13).
In the clouds, clockwise from the top left: (1) Д(у)хъ служебныя, теплота, мразъ, зима, снегъ и ледъ, ангел господень содержа сеи – Servant spirits, warmth, frost, winter, snow, and ice: an angel of the Lord holds sway over them. (2) Ангелъ господенъ росу дая, сиïрѣчъ силу [да]я ωчищения ωт собъла[з]на греха – The angel of the Lord who gives dew, i.e. gives one strength to cleanse oneself from the temptation of sin. (3) Духъ премудрости, ангелъ огню палящ[ъ, сиречь] на[м] будущая пока[заи] –The spirit of wisdom, an angel who burns with fire, i.e. shows us the things to come. (4) Духъ страх[а божия, ангелъ грому,]... – The spirit of the fear of the Lord, an angel of thunder… (5) Духъ состави дѣлу благому, сиïреч ангелъ блистания и держания – The spirit of the preparation of a good deed, i.e. an angel of brilliance and power. (6) Духъ ωбновлениа . . . . чистыхъ – The spirit of the renewal… of the pure. (7) Духъ благочестия, сиречь ωтсечения, подаеть чашу горести – The spirit of piety, i.e. of renunciation, who gives a cup of sorrow. (8) Духъ разума, сиречь чюдодѣиствуетъ в мире – The spirit of understanding, i.e. one who works miracles in the world. (In general cf. Isaiah 11:2).
In the corners, clockwise from the top left: (1) На Синаѣ видѣ Моисѣи ку[пи]ну ωгнемъ пегомоу и неизгораем[у] и вов .... ис к[упины] – On Sinai Moses saw a bush burnt and unconsumed by fire, and …. from the bush. (2) Иωсия [sc. Иессеи] коренъ и[спу]сти ωт негоже цве[тъ Христосъ от девы] пр[озяблъ есть] – Hosea [sc. Jesse] cast forth a stem, from which Christ blossomed out of the Virgin [cf. Isaiah 11:1]. (3) Ιякωв видѣ лествицу ... – Jacob saw a ladder… (4) illegible.
The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple
On the other side of the panel is a more traditional composition, The Presentation of the Virgin. According to several apocryphal works, such as the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the Proto-Evangelium of James, the Virgin is said to have served an apprenticeship in the Temple in Jerusalem from age 3 to age 12.[20] In the central panel, the child Mary is led to the Temple by her parents, Joachim and Anne, and accompanied by a procession of virgins. The future mother of Jesus holds out her hands to the priest Zechariah as a sign of offering herself to God. Toward the top of the panel, the Virgin is fed with the bread of contemplation by the archangel Gabriel.[21] This divine bread prefigures the Eucharist, and the Virgin herself is associated with the Temple in which God was housed.[22] The figures stand against an architectural background; as is traditional in icons, the scene is shown as taking place outdoors, but the red cloth in the doorway, in a device that originated in Greco-Roman theater decoration, indicates that the action actually takes place inside the Temple. This cloth also refers to Isaiah’s vision of the cloak of the Lord, filling the whole Temple (Is 6:1), underscoring the Temple’s significance as the house of God.
In the niches to the left of the central panel are Zechariah and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist, and in the niches to the right are Joachim and Anne. Above are five Old Testament figures, Jeremiah, Daniel, Isaiah, Moses, and Aaron, each holding a scroll with a prophesy referring to the Virgin.
The Presentation of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple is one of the twelve Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church and is commemorated on November 21.
Inscriptions on the Prophets' Scrolls Above the Presentation of the Virgin
Jeremiah: Азъ пут [т]я видих (I saw you as a way), cf. Jeremiah 42:3; Daniel: Гору разумн[ую] (A noetic mountain [I saw]), cf. Daniel 2:34; Isaiah: Се дева {я} во чреве прииметъ (Behold, a virgin shall conceive in her womb), Isaiah 7:14; Moses: Азъ купину прозва[х] (I called [you] a bush), cf. Exodus 3:2; Aaron: Жезлъ тя проявляя (Prefiguring you as a rod), cf. Exodus 7:10, Numbers 17:8.
References
- ↑ The Dictionary of Art, ed. J. Turner (London and New York, 1996), Vol. XXIX, 779; E. Smirnova, "Mediaeval Russian Icons, 11th-17th cent.", in: A History of Icon Painting, transl. K. Cook (Moscow, 2005), 160-161.
- ↑ M. M. Mango, "Byzantine Art and the Holy Land", in: Sinai, Byzantium, Russian: Orthodox Art from the Sixth to the Twentieth Century (London, 2000), 36-37.
- ↑ The Great Horologion, transl. Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Boston, 1997), 646, 653; ‘Пречестому образу Твоему поклоняемся...’: Образ Богоматери в произведениях из собрания Русского музея (St. Petersburg, 1995), 71.
- ↑ Icons from Sinai, eds. R. S. Nelson and K. M. Collins (Los Angeles, 2006), figure 15.
- ↑ Ibid., 106-116.
- ↑ Images of the Burning Bush (Неопалимая купина) are mentioned in the proceedings of the synodal trial of Ivan M. Viskovatii, AD 1554
- ↑ The protocols of the council’s investigation have been published as “Розыск или список о богохульных строках и о сумнении святых честных икон, диака Ивана Михаилова сына Висковатого, в лето 7062”, Чтения в Обществе истории и древностей российских при Московском университете (1858), кн. 2, отд. 3; see also В. Д. Сарабьянов, "Символико-аллегорические иконы Благовещенского собора и их влияние на искусство XVI века", in: Благовещенский собор московского кремля (Moscow, 1999), 164-217; O. Tarasov, Icon and Devotion: Sacred Spaces in Imperial Russia, transl. R. Milner-Gulland (London, 2002), 211-212.
- ↑ For a list of early icons of the Virgin of the Burning Bush (not including the Walters one) see: Д. С. Головкова, “‘Богоматерь Неопалимая купина’: Иконография и символика,” Искусство христианского мира: Сборник статей 7 (2003), 206.
- ↑ E.g. The Great Horologion, transl. Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Boston, 1997), 117, 110, 246
- ↑ Ibid., 648.
- ↑ Ibid. 110; cf. А. Н. Виноградов, “Сравнительное описание и краткое объяснение иконы Приснодевы Богородицы «Неопалимыя купины»”, Известия императорскаго Русскаго археологическаго общества 9 (1880), 6.
- ↑ See examples of both versions in I. Bentchev, Engelikonen (Freiburg, 2003), 27, 117, 121.
- ↑ В. Д. Сарабьянов, "Символико-аллегорические иконы Благовещенского собора и их влияние на искусство XVI века", in: Благовещенский собор московского кремля (Moscow, 1999), 186; А. Н. Виноградов, “Сравнительное описание и краткое объяснение иконы Приснодевы Богородицы «Неопалимыя купины»”, Известия императорскаго Русскаго археологическаго общества 9 (1880), 8.
- ↑ E.g. The Great Horologion, transl. Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Boston, 1997), 652.
- ↑ Д. С. Головкова, “‘Богоматерь неопалимая купина’: Иконография и символика,” Искусство христианского мира: Сборник статей 7 (2003), 208; about the fresco see Г. И. Вздорнов, Фрески Феофана Грека в Церкви Спаса Преображения в Новгороде (Moscow, 1976), 206.
- ↑ The Great Horologion, transl. Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Boston, 1997), 360.
- ↑ А. П. Щапов, “Исторические очерки народнаго миросозерцания и суеверия”, Журнал Министерства народнаго просвещения 118 (1863), no. 1, sect. IV, 5; the Slavic text is a translation of an excerpt from Epiphanius’ Greek work On Measures and Weights (CPG 3746).
- ↑ A. Н. Aфанасьев, Поэтическия воззения славян на природу, 3 vols. (Moscow, 1865-1869), I, 483-9.
- ↑ State Museum of the History of Religion, St. Petersburg; illustrated in O. Tarasov, Icon and Devotion, transl. R. Milner-Gulland (London, 2002), fig. 32
- ↑ Proto-Evangelium of James 7: Engl. transl. in: J. K. Elliott, ed. The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, 1993), 60; Pseudo-Matthew 4: Engl. transl.: ibid., 88.
- ↑ Pseudo-Matthew 6.
- ↑ The Great Horologion, transl. Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Boston, 1997), 657.
Bibliography
The Walters Art Museum icon has not been published previously. On the iconography of the Virgin of the Burning Bush in general see, most recently:
J.-P. Deschler, "Die Ikone Gottesmuter 'Nichtverbrennender Dornbusch'", in: K. Chr. Felmy and E. Haustein-Bartsch, eds. "Die Weisheit baute ihr Haus": Untersuchungen zu hymnischen und didaktischen Ikonen (Munich, 1999), 113-157.
Д. С. Головкова, “‘Богоматерь неопалимая купина’: Иконография и символика,” Искусство христианского мира: Сборник статей 7 (2003), 205-220.
