An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, saints, and angels. Although especially associated with portrait-style images concentrating on one or two main figures, the term also covers most of the religious images in a variety of artistic media produced by Eastern Christianity, including narrative scenes, usually from the Bible or the lives of saints.
In art, a Madonna is a representation of Mary, either alone or with her child Jesus. These images are central icons for both the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The word is from Italian ma donna 'my lady' (archaic). The Madonna and Child type is very prevalent in Christian iconography, divided into many traditional subtypes especially in Eastern Orthodox iconography, often known after the location of a notable icon of the type, such as the Theotokos of Vladimir, Agiosoritissa, Blachernitissa, etc., or descriptive of the depicted posture, as in Hodegetria, Eleusa, etc.
The depiction of Jesus in pictorial form dates back to early Christian art and architecture, as aniconism in Christianity was rejected within the ante-Nicene period. It took several centuries to reach a conventional standardized form for his physical appearance, which has subsequently remained largely stable since that time. Most images of Jesus have in common a number of traits which are now almost universally associated with Jesus, although variants are seen.
According to Christian tradition, the Image of Edessa was a holy relic consisting of a square or rectangle of cloth upon which a miraculous image of the face of Jesus Christ had been imprinted—the first icon. The image is also known as the Mandylion, in Eastern Orthodoxy, it is also known as Acheiropoieton.
Religious images in Christian theology have a role within the liturgical and devotional life of adherents of certain Christian denominations. The use of religious images has often been a contentious issue in Christian history. Concern over idolatry is the driving force behind the various traditions of aniconism in Christianity.
The Black Nazarene is a life-sized dark statue of Jesus Christ carrying the True Cross. The venerated image is enshrined in the Minor Basilica and National Shrine of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo, Manila, Philippines.
Ecce homo are the Latin words used by Pontius Pilate in the Vulgate translation of the Gospel of John, when he presents a scourged Jesus, bound and crowned with thorns, to a hostile crowd shortly before his crucifixion. The original New Testament Greek: "ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος", romanized: "idoù ho ánthropos", is rendered by most English Bible translations, e.g. the Douay-Rheims Bible and the King James Version, as "behold the man". The scene has been widely depicted in Christian art.
In Christian iconography, Christ Pantocrator is a specific depiction of Christ. Pantocrator or Pantokrator, literally ruler of all, but usually translated as "Almighty" or "all-powerful", is derived from one of many names of God in Judaism.
The Señor Santo Niño de Cebú is a Catholic title of the Child Jesus associated with a religious image of the Christ Child widely venerated as miraculous by Filipino Catholics. It is the oldest Christian artifact in the Philippines, originally a gift from the Conquistador Ferdinand Magellan to Rajah Humabon and his wife and chief consort, Hara Humamay on account of their Christian baptism in 1521. The image is the only canonically crowned image of Jesus Christ in the Philippines.
Marian devotions are external pious practices directed to the person of Mary, mother of Jesus, by members of certain Christian traditions. They are performed in Catholicism, High Church Lutheranism, Anglo-Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, but generally rejected in other Christian denominations.
Aniconism is the absence of material representations of the natural and supernatural world in various cultures. Most denominations of Christianity have not generally practiced aniconism, or the avoidance or prohibition of these types of images, even dating back to early Christian art and architecture. Those in the faith have generally had an active tradition of making artwork and Christian media; depicting God, Jesus, The Holy Spirit, religious figures including saints and prophets, and other aspects of theology like The Trinity and Manus Dei.
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Acheiropoieta — also called icons made without hands — are Christian icons which are said to have come into existence miraculously; not created by a human. Invariably these are images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary. The most notable examples that are credited by tradition among the faithful are, in the Eastern church, the Mandylion, also known as the Image of Edessa, and the Hodegetria, and several Russian icons, and in the West the Shroud of Turin, Veil of Veronica, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and the Manoppello Image. The term is also used of icons that are only regarded as normal human copies of a miraculously created original archetype.
Christian symbolism is the use of symbols, including archetypes, acts, artwork or events, by Christianity. It invests objects or actions with an inner meaning expressing Christian ideas.
In Christianity, God is the eternal, supreme being who created and preserves all things. Christians believe in a monotheistic conception of God, which is both transcendent and immanent. Christians believe in a singular God that exists in a Trinity, which consists of three Persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Christian teachings on the transcendence, immanence, and involvement of God in the world and his love for humanity exclude the belief that God is of the same substance as the created universe but accept that God the Son assumed hypostatically united human nature, thus becoming man in a unique event known as "the Incarnation".
The icon of Our Lady of the Sign or Platytera is the term for a particular type of icon of the Theotokos, facing the viewer directly, depicted either full length or half, with her hands raised in the orans position, and with the image of the Child Jesus depicted within a round aureole upon her breast.
A religious image is a work of visual art that is representational and has a religious purpose, subject or connection. All major historical religions have made some use of religious images, although their use is strictly controlled and often controversial in many religions, especially Abrahamic ones. General terms associated with religious images include cult image, a term for images, especially in sculpture which are or have been claimed to be the object of religious worship in their own right, and icon strictly a term for Eastern Orthodox religious images, but often used more widely, in and outside the area of religion.
Mary has been one of the major subjects of Western art for centuries. There is an enormous quantity of Marian art in the Catholic Church, covering both devotional subjects such as the Virgin and Child and a range of narrative subjects from the Life of the Virgin, often arranged in cycles. Most medieval painters, and from the Reformation to about 1800 most from Catholic countries, have produced works, including old masters such as Michelangelo and Botticelli.
For about a thousand years, in obedience to interpretations of specific Bible passages, pictorial depictions of God in Western Christianity had been avoided by Christian artists. At first only the Hand of God, often emerging from a cloud, was portrayed. Gradually, portrayals of the head and later the whole figure were depicted, and by the time of the Renaissance artistic representations of God the Father were freely used in the Western Church.
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