ICONS DEPICTING SACRED SITES IN THE NORTHEASTERN MEDITERRANEAN: EXPLORING THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN LANDSCAPE PAINTING, PILGRIMAGE, AND IDENTITY IN THE SEVENTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES (original) (raw)

Visual depictions of landscape, scenery and recognisable locations and buildings in artwork have been around since ancient times, evolving during the Greek, Roman and Byzantine times. But it was mathematical advancements in painting representation during the Renaissance that led to a deeper understanding of perspective and proportion, which had a profound effect on space and landscape painting, revolutionising the way scenery was depicted. Landscape, along with architectural painting, became independent genres in the early sixteenth century, particularly in the painting of the Low Countries and Germany. Although they were considered of low significance by art authorities like the Académie Royale in France (1648-1793), the rise of these pictorial genres on the Netherlandish art markets in the mid-seventeenth century gave them impetus to evolve and diversify. 1 This evolution, along with the advancement of cartography in the West, sparked a heightened interest in landscape painting, engraving and drawing, including in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Russian and Greek icon painting, influenced by Western trends, began to incorporate increasingly detailed depictions of sites linked to sacred histories or church ensembles housing miracle-working relics. 2 These compositions typically had two overlapping sections: the celestial domain, governed by traditional iconographic conventions, and the terrestrial world, serving as a medium for visual experiments aligned with cartographic and aerial views of sites and architecture, featuring chorographic and topographic details. This article is the third part of a broader study project that focused on the increasing presence of topographic details in Orthodox icons from the mid-seventeenth to mid-nineteenth centuries in Southeastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. The study developed as a three-part triptych that categorised the painting material based on function and origin: maritime ex-votos and icons with cartographic depictions from the Greek islands, 3 proskynetaria icons of Jerusalem (pilgrimage icons; from Gr. προσκύνησις, meaning obeisance, reverence or kissing) 4 and the third category, which is the subject