Iconographic Analysis of the Nativity of the Holy Theotokos
The Great Feasts serve to tell us
the story of the Incarnation, which has its climax in the center of the year
with the celebration of the “Feast of Feasts” – Pascha (Easter). It is
therefore fitting that the first Great Feast of the Church year, which begins
in September (on September,14), is that of the Nativity of the Theotokos.
The early life of Mary, the Mother
of God, up to the occasion of the Annunciation is described in the ancient
Protoevangelium of James. Hymnography and iconography for the feasts
celebrating Mary’s conception, birth, and dedication to the Temple as a child,
all borrow from this early (2nd century) account.
The Mother of God’s birth was
miraculous, not because she was born without original sin, nor because she was
born of a virgin, but instead because she was born of a man and his barren
wife: Joachim and Anna.
The icon of the feast is a
more-or-less faithful imaging of the protoevangelium, with the composition
echoing the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ which Mary’s birth prepares the
way for. Anna is reclining in a bed, in a similar way to how Mary herself
reclines on icons of Christ’s Nativity. Below Anna, the infant Mary is being
bathed by midwives, just as the infant Christ is washed by Salome on the icon
of His own birth. Likewise, just as
Joseph is shown removed from the main scene of the birth in Nativity icons,
Mary’s father Joachim is also shown apart from the scene in icons of the
Theotokos’ birth.
As for the differences, the main one
is that the surroundings. Whereas Christ’s birth is shown to be in a cave, in
the wilderness, the Mother of God’s birth is shown within the city walls, amid
what appears to be a beautifully decorated house, because Joachim was “a man
rich exceedingly”. Instead of a cave, Mary is inside Anna’s bed-chamber, which
according to the protoevangelium was made into a sanctuary until the time Mary
entered the Temple. Whereas Mary and the Christ-child are attended by angels in
their relative solitude, around Anna is a hive of activity: the “undefiled
daughters of the Hebrews” whom Anna brought into the bed-chamber to attend to
her. A table by Anna shows the feast which Joachim prepared on Mary’s first
birthday, to which were invited the scribes, priests and elders of Israel.
Other details which may be present
are separate details of Anna, Joachim and the infant Mary together in a loving
embrace. Scenes from before the Theotokos’ nativity may also be shown, such as
the angel visiting Joachim in the desert to tell him of the upcoming
conception, and Joachim and Anna embracing at the gateway to their house, an
image also depicted separately as the “Conception of the Mother of God”. At the
bottom of the Icon there is sometimes a fountain of water or water fowl in a
small garden. This describes Anna’s “double lament” beneath the laurel tree of
her garden, when she thought that she would neither conceive or see her husband
again:
Alas! Who begot
me? And what womb produced me? Because I have become a curse in the presence of
the sons of Israel, and I have been reproached, and they have driven me in
derision out of the temple of the Lord. Alas! To what have I been likened? I am
not like the fowls of the heaven, because even the fowls of the heaven are
productive before You, O Lord. Alas! To what have I been likened? I am not like
the beasts of the earth, because even the beasts of the earth are productive
before You, O Lord. Alas! To what have I been likened? I am not like these
waters, because even these waters are productive before You, O Lord. Alas! To
what have I been likened? I am not like this earth, because even the earth
brings forth its fruits in season, and blesses You, O Lord.
The icon of the Nativity of the
Theotokos shows us the relatively exalted beginnings of Mary’s birth. Yet in
her humility she does not expect the tidings that the Archangel Gabriel brings
just a few years later, and bears with quietude the modest surroundings of her
own Son’s birth in Bethlehem.
Source: https://iconreader.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/the-nativity-of-the-theotokos-icon/
