Saint George Slaying the Dragon,

17th century

During the Byzantine Empire, icons—images of holy figures or biblical episodes—helped adherents of Christianity understand religious doctrines and focused their devotion during prayer and liturgical rituals. Icons most often adorned church altars or screens called iconostases, which separated the clergy performing the ritual from the laity and demarcated the most sacred part of the church. Often painted on a shimmering ground of gold leaf, icons were understood not only to represent holy figures but also to embody their sacred presence, and thus could intercede on behalf of worshippers. As a result, icons were often touched, even kissed and ingested.

Icons produced in Greece circulated across Europe as the Byzantine Empire lost power and receded following violent schisms with the Latin Church, driven by disputes over interpretations of Christian doctrine, and later by incursions into Byzantine territory by the Ottomans. Many European artists copied the style of Byzantine icons, with their hieratic, frontal figures set against gold grounds. However, in Europe, Byzantine icons were identified as “Greek” to distinguish them from the devotional panels that increasingly adorned Latin Churches, which portrayed religious figures as three-dimensional and in more naturalistic settings.