Byzantine and Post-byzantine Icons

La peinture des icones du 18ème et du début du 19ème siècle à Leukada
                                            Entre  l’art crétois et ionien

La peinture au cours du 18ème et 19ème siècle, dans le domaine des iles Ioniennes est sans aucun doute un phénomène intégral, mais qui n'a pas progressé au même rythme dans toutes les îles. Zakynthos et Corfou ont joué un rôle important dans le plan artistique, par opposition à Lefkada qui, en raison de la longue occupation ottomane, mais aussi des structures sociales et économiques communs avec le continent voisin, est restée loin de ces fertiles progressions. L’apogée du mouvement artistique à Lefkada s’est formée à l’époque de la conquête de l'île par les Vénitiens. Pendant cette période ont été construites presque toutes les églises dans la ville.
Cette communication interprète les premières nouvelles de l’inventaire des icones dans ces églises. Cette mission, en 2010 et 2012, a été rendu possible (s’est formée) grâce au financement de l'Université de Ioannina et de la participation de l'équipe d'étudiants.
Je me propose de présenter quelques œuvres caractéristiques des peintres nommés,  Panagiotis Doxaras Constantinos Kontarinis, Papanoulopoulos, Tommaso Zen, Stylianos Devaris et Spyridon Venturas, et ensuite certains thèmes iconographiques  comme Ecce Homo, les anges avec les symboles de la Passion, etc., qui retracent la production artistique du 18e et du début du 19e siècle à Lefkada.
Les peintres actifs dans la ville, depuis les premières décennies du 18e jusqu' à la première moitié du 19e siècle – presque quinze sont d’origine locale- flottent entre les enseignements de l'école crétoise, puisée dans les normes strictes et le message novateur de l’école née au territoire des iles Ioniennes, la soi-disant école Ionienne. Les peintres actifs dans Leukada, tant les locaux ainsi que les étrangers sont créatifs et ils s’adaptent aux exigences morpho plastics de leur temps : ils relèvent des emprunts des peintres crétois, principalement ceux de la diaspora, tout en adoptant la nouvelle iconographie, le style et la technique de l’art des iles Ioniennes, entièrement inspiré par l’Occident.

The icon of St Martin at the museum of Petit Palais in Paris depicts the most famous episode in his life, namely the Division of the Cloak.  It measures 35 x 28.3 cm, which is slightly bigger than an A4 sheet of paper, and bears the name of the saint in Latin. It is painted with tempera and gold on wood and it styles the western saint as a Byzantine soldier.

According to his biographer Sulpicus Severus, Martin was born around 316/7 in the Roman province of Pannonia. He joined the cavalry at the age of 15 and was stationed in Amiens, where he came across a shabbily dressed beggar. Without hesitation, he cut his cloak in half and gave it to him, only to realize later that night that the beggar was Christ himself. Martin was baptized soon after and quit the army. He became the bishop of Tours in 370/1, where he led a humble life and fought the heretics. He died in nearby Candes in 397.
The image of St Martin as a soldier emerged in the 13th century and coincided with the rise of the Franciscan order. The two saints were often compared by the biographers of St Francis of Assisi, since the episode of the Division of the Cloak fitted the ideal of charity and self-sacrifice promoted by the Franciscan movement. Thus, St Francis became the new St Martin of the Middle Ages. 

The famous series of frescoes in the Lower Church of Assisi, painted by Simone Martini, between 1312 and 1317 for the chapel of Saint Martin, attest to the close connection between the two saints. The chapel was built and decorated at the expense of Gentile Partino da Montefiore, a Franciscan friar and cardinal, and its program not only commemorated the saint’s life but was also designed to suit the demands of the Franciscan order.

St Martin was almost unknown in the East, although he was part of the Byzantine liturgical calendar.  The skilled painter of the Cretan icon, dated in the second half of the 15th century, was most probably inspired by works of the Italian Trecento, such as the polyptych of San Giacomo Maggiore in Bologna by Paolo Veneziano (c. 1340-60) or the mariegola of the scuola piccola of St Martin in Venice (1335).  His depiction of the saint is strongly reminiscent of icons of the dragon-slaying St George on horseback, such as the famous one by Angelos Acotantos of the mid-fifteenth century. However, St Martin’s horse is depicted ‘in parade’, i.e. with only his front left leg raised, a detail copied from the bronze horses of San Marco in Venice, which reached Venetian Crete through the influence of Pisanello and Paolo Uccello.

St Martin was a known saint in Venetian Crete since his feast-day was celebrated already in the early 14th century. In 1446, when the metropolitan church of St Titus in Candia was renovated, relics of St Martin were placed in the altar. This incident might have fuelled a renewed interest in the cult of St Martin and led a member of the Franciscan order living in Crete to order on icon of the saint for personal devotion. Thus, a purely western bishop-saint, almost unknown in the East, was transformed into an Orthodox military saint and transported from Roman Tours to Venetian Crete.