2.2 Virgin and Child

Icons depicting the Virgin and Child are by far the most popular. Their popularity is certainly related to the fact that the Virgin and Child is the original and ‘ultimate’ icon: it is believed that the very first such icon was painted by Saint Luke himself. According to the narrative relating the episode, once Saint Luke showed the Virgin what he had produced, she said ‘My grace shall be with this’ (Angelidi and Papamastorakis, 2000, p. 377; James, 2016, p. 28–29). As a consequence, it not only carries the seal of approval of the Virgin herself, that representing the divine was blessed, but it is also ‘true to life’, since the portrait reflects the real likeness of the Virgin and Christ. This directly relates to Saint Basil’s declaration that ‘the honour of the icon passes to the prototype’ used by the iconophiles in defence of the icons, as mentioned earlier in Section 2.

The ‘original’ Virgin and Child painted by Saint Luke is considered to be an acheiropoietos icon (from the Greek αχειροποίητος, akheiropoíētos, lit. ‘not made by hands’, suggesting ordinary hands, since Luke was a saint); it is believed that all subsequent icons of the Virgin and Child derived from this first ‘life’ portrait. In order to remain true to the ‘prototype’, so that the worship of the faithful passes directly to the divinity, icons had to reproduce the ‘original’ format as closely as possible. This theological mandate is one of the main reasons that Byzantine icons and art as a whole seem to be repetitive – it is certainly not due to any lack of artistic ability.