Greek embossed and reticulated silver incense burner,
Cretan or Venetian workshop, 16th to 17th century.
Greco. With the passage of time, these
artists began to introduce many icono-
graphic elements from the repertoire of the
Italian Renaissance. They became proficient
in the “maniera Italiana” in addition to their
own “maniera Greca,” as the two styles came
to be known, and created a new style that
combined the two.
The subject of the Theotokos and Child
Christ became the object of much study
and creative innovation. New iconographic
types of the subject appeared, each giving
emphasis to ever-growing theological facets
of the Mother-Child relationship. In one such
creation, “Theotokos of the Passion,” the
young Christ Child is startled by the sight
of angels holding the instruments of His
Passion; the Divine Child is jolted to the point
where He loses one of His sandals. This
icon is a moving new narrative, but adds no
significant new theology to the story. It illus-
trates the overall trend for the Cretan icons
of the Theotokos or Christ: from the mid-15th
century to the end of the 16th, the newly
created types of Mother-Child icons exude
an overwhelming sadness and unmistakable
somberness, but they do not express new
theological statements.
In the first century of its existence, the
Cretan style was essentially very conser-
24
ICONS OF THE HELLENIC WORLD
vative unless the commissioning patron
demanded differently. Throughout the 15th
and 16th centuries, many European patrons
who reacted negatively to the liberalizing
contemporary religious creations of their
own artists in Italy and Northern Europe
were attracted to the conservatism of
Cretan painters. These patrons placed many
requests for Cretan icons which today can
be seen in Northern Europe and Italy.
The Cretan school had a large and profound
effect on the art of the other Greek schools
of icon painting. Its icons were highly prized
for their quality and craftsmanship. The
Cretan painters, many of whom were monks,
traveled extensively in the Holy Land, to
Syrian Antioch, Mount Sinai, Egypt, Constan-
tinople, and Mount Athos, where they spent
considerable amounts of time painting large
projects commissioned by the monasteries.
In that way, the Cretan idiom came to be the
art that many other Greek and non-Greek
workshops imitated.
For more than two hundred years, the
large and prosperous Cretan community in
Venice, centered around the church of San
Giorgio dei Greci, provided work and signif-
icant commissions for icon painters who
visited the city. The icons of these painters
can still be seen in the church buildings of
the Greek community, in museums in Venice,
in local collections of the Veneto, and in
many museums throughout Italy.
The Dalmatian Coast also provided the
Cretan painters with continuing commis-
sions, work which other Italian artists might
have shunned. Cretan artists were much
sought after, painting icons either in the
Greek manner, or that of the Italian Renais-
sance, or a fusion of the two, according to