DOI article:
Rozanow, Zofia: The implicit symbolic content of the painting of the Mother of God of Częstochowa
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18951#0057
The image gained its finał Gothic form in the years 1430-1434, due to the
restoration after the 1430 robbery and assault on the Jasna Góra Monastery,
attributed to the Hussite iconoclasts. This first documented restoration of the
painting was carried out in Kraków, under the royal patronage of Władysław
Jagiełło.
At that time the image underwent further formal transformation, following the
Gothic tendencies of the 1430s. It has remained stylistically unchanged until now.
During the Jagiellonian restoration, the looted Byzantine casing was replaced
with the new, gilded nimbuses around the heads of the Blessed Virgin Mary and
the Child. Fragments of the background behind the nimbuses were covered with
similar metal panels presenting four engraved figurative scenes. The whole panel
was surrounded by wooden, profiled Gothic frame, which was pasted with canvas
covered with painted plant ornament and integrated the planks in the support of
the painting. The partial damages and losses of paint layer in some fragments of
the figures were filled in and masterly retouched. The robes of Yirgin Mary and
Jesus were adorned with the then painted ornaments.
Despite the formal transformations that the painting has gone through in the
course of centuries, its primary iconographic formula—and thereby the principal
theological meaning expressed in the image—remained unchanged.
It represents the Mother of God—the Hodegetria, who guides the humanity
on its way to salvation—holding on her left arm Christ the Redeemer, by whose
sacrifice on the Cross can the human race be freed from the original sin.
Such mission of Emmanuel is madę visible through the maturę face of Jesus,
marked by non-childlike seriousness, whose futurę Passion was surely once
foretold in the cross-shaped nimbus.
The child is also the embodiment of God’s wisdom. This fact is symbolized
by the codex of Gospel—the New Law—held in the left hand of the Infant. In
the original, Byzantine sense, the gesture of fingers madę with a raised right
hand signifies the gesture of a sovereign. It is the Cosmocrator, the creator of
the universe, and the Pantocrator, the lawmaker. Two fingers raised upwards
remind about the dual naturę of the Saviour, who is divine and human. The Latin
theology of the Western Church interprets the gesture of the Infant’s right hand
as the sign of blessing and teaching the Gospel.
This basie iconographic formula of the Flodegetria was retained from the
original painting and shaped the compositional arrangement of the second
yersion. After 1430 it was enriched by new, decorative and symbolic elements,
structured accordingly to the language of the Latin metaphor.
Newpainting elements of the image, together with the Gothic, gilded decoration
that was added to it, constitute a uniform complex of meanings. Deciphering and
interpreting of its contents were the object of my research undertaken in 1985.
55
restoration after the 1430 robbery and assault on the Jasna Góra Monastery,
attributed to the Hussite iconoclasts. This first documented restoration of the
painting was carried out in Kraków, under the royal patronage of Władysław
Jagiełło.
At that time the image underwent further formal transformation, following the
Gothic tendencies of the 1430s. It has remained stylistically unchanged until now.
During the Jagiellonian restoration, the looted Byzantine casing was replaced
with the new, gilded nimbuses around the heads of the Blessed Virgin Mary and
the Child. Fragments of the background behind the nimbuses were covered with
similar metal panels presenting four engraved figurative scenes. The whole panel
was surrounded by wooden, profiled Gothic frame, which was pasted with canvas
covered with painted plant ornament and integrated the planks in the support of
the painting. The partial damages and losses of paint layer in some fragments of
the figures were filled in and masterly retouched. The robes of Yirgin Mary and
Jesus were adorned with the then painted ornaments.
Despite the formal transformations that the painting has gone through in the
course of centuries, its primary iconographic formula—and thereby the principal
theological meaning expressed in the image—remained unchanged.
It represents the Mother of God—the Hodegetria, who guides the humanity
on its way to salvation—holding on her left arm Christ the Redeemer, by whose
sacrifice on the Cross can the human race be freed from the original sin.
Such mission of Emmanuel is madę visible through the maturę face of Jesus,
marked by non-childlike seriousness, whose futurę Passion was surely once
foretold in the cross-shaped nimbus.
The child is also the embodiment of God’s wisdom. This fact is symbolized
by the codex of Gospel—the New Law—held in the left hand of the Infant. In
the original, Byzantine sense, the gesture of fingers madę with a raised right
hand signifies the gesture of a sovereign. It is the Cosmocrator, the creator of
the universe, and the Pantocrator, the lawmaker. Two fingers raised upwards
remind about the dual naturę of the Saviour, who is divine and human. The Latin
theology of the Western Church interprets the gesture of the Infant’s right hand
as the sign of blessing and teaching the Gospel.
This basie iconographic formula of the Flodegetria was retained from the
original painting and shaped the compositional arrangement of the second
yersion. After 1430 it was enriched by new, decorative and symbolic elements,
structured accordingly to the language of the Latin metaphor.
Newpainting elements of the image, together with the Gothic, gilded decoration
that was added to it, constitute a uniform complex of meanings. Deciphering and
interpreting of its contents were the object of my research undertaken in 1985.
55