The Comparative Study of Saint Mary Icon in Islamic and Christian Painting

Associate Professor, Research Institute of Culture, Art & Communications
Iconography as a holy art has depicted spirituality and divine dimension of sacred characters. The nature of iconography is defined by its transcendental or assimilating structure. As the historical trajectory of western art shows, a new form of depicting holy characters emerged based on assimilative approach which undermined their sanctity this paper is to study comparatively the icon of Saint Mary from transcendental and assimilative approaches in Christian and Islamic art. The selection of Saint Mary icon as the case study is because of its importance and abundance in Christian art and the limitation of Persian painting on depiction of other holy maidens. The sample of research has been selected purposively and the analysis method of artistic works is descriptive and semiotic. The research results show that the change of artist ontology led to adoption of each one of approaches aforementioned and changed the nature of iconography as a religious art.