CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Relics/Icons/Paintings: A Very Short History of Venetian Painting

West Facade of St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice. Photograph Source: Zairon – Public Domain

This essay is for Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good

To understand the history of Venice, you need to know that there were three ways in which saints and other holy figures were presented in the churches. There were relics, bodily remains or objects associated with a person. Icons. And artworks. All three kinds of presentations are found in contemporary sacred culture. But until recently, art historians didn’t say much about relics. As Garry Wills, speaking as a Catholic, noted, “of all the superstitions we find registered in the history, politics, and art of the Middle Ages, relics can seem the most unconvincing, even the most absurd.”(Orthodox Christians have a different view.) And only recently has much attention been given by art historians to icons, and their relationship to artworks. Relics, icons and pictures stand for the saints or holy figures in different ways. The relic consists of the physical remains; the icon represents the saint visually, and the picture represents the saint. But this distinction between icons and pictures can be hard to pin down. Christopher J. Nygren speaks of icons in his Titian’s Icons: Tradition, Charisma, and Devotion in Renaissance Italy (2020) in a way justified by his account. Normally, however, scholars would not identify Titian’s paintings of the Madonna as icons. Usually Icons are non-naturalistic visual works. They look different from paintings. None of the numerous icons illustrated in the Getty Museum book by Alfredo Tradigo could be confused with a Renaissance painting. When Vasari calls icons ‘Greek paintings’, he makes an important distinction, contrasting theme to Tuscan pictures. Icons belong to the Byzantine Eastern Rite tradition, while naturalistic paintings are integral to Renaissance Italian Catholicism. That’s the usual scholarly convention.

Relics, icons, and sacred paintings all aid in prayer. When you pray, it may help to be close to a saint’s relics. Or if you can, contemplate an icon showing that sacred figure. Or, at least, if you look at a picture of the holy figure. Relics, icons, and pictures thus all take you close to the saint, and so facilitate prayer. All........

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