Saint Luke painting the Virgin, (Lukas-Madonna in German or Dutch)

Luke the Evangelist (Ancient Greek: Λουκᾶς, Loukás) is one of the Four Evangelists—the four authors of canonical Gospels of Jesus Christ. Luke was a native of the Hellenistic city of Antioch in Syria. The early church fathers ascribed to him authorship of both the Gospel according to Luke and the book of Acts of the Apostles, which originally formed a single literary work, referred to as Luke-Acts. Prominent figures in early Christianity such as Jerome and Eusebius later reaffirmed his authorship, although within scholarly circles, both secular and religious, discussions have taken place due to the lack of evidence as to the identity of the author of the works.

The New Testament mentions Luke briefly a few times, and the Pauline epistle to the Colossians refers to him as a doctor; thus he is thought to have been both a physician and a disciple of Paul. Christians since the faith's early years have regarded him as a saint. He is believed to have died a martyr, although accounts of the events do vary.

The Roman Catholic Church and other major denominations venerate him as Saint Luke the Evangelist and as a patron saint of artists, physicians, surgeons, students and butchers; his feast day takes place on 18 October.

Luke the Evangelist

Saint Luke painting the Virgin, (Lukas-Madonna in German or Dutch), is a devotional subject in art showing Luke the Evangelist painting the Virgin Mary with the Child Jesus. Such paintings were often created during the Renaissance for chapels of Saint Luke in European churches, and frequently recalled the composition of the Salus Populi Romani, an icon based on the legend of Luke's portrait of Mary. Versions of the subject were sometimes painted as the masterpiece that many guilds required an artist to submit before receiving the title of master.

Though not included in the canonic pictorial of Mary's life, the scene became increasingly popular as Saint Luke gained his own devotional following as the patron saint of artists in general, and more specifically as patron saint of the Guild of Saint Luke, the most common name of local painters' guilds. The legend of Saint Luke as the author of the first Christian icons had been developed in Byzantium during the Iconoclastic controversies, as attested by 8th century sources. By the 11th century, a number of images started being attributed to his authorship and venerated as authentic portraits of Christ and the Virgin Mary. 

In the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Luke's ascendancy paralleled a rise in status of painters themselves. Before the Renaissance, sculptors' guilds and their associated craftsmen — which also included masons and architects, as all worked with stone — tended to be regarded more highly than painters. Similarly, many Guilds of St. Luke were conglomerate associations of various professions, including painters, paint-mixers, book illuminators, and sellers of all of these things. Saddle-makers too were members of these guilds: like illuminators, who worked with vellum, they too painted on leather when creating the colorful military harness of the day.




"Is it true that St. Luke painted a picture of the Virgin Mary? And if so where is it or whatever happened to it?


There are various versions of the legend. One says that angels gave Luke three boards on which to paint Mary and he made three pictures of her. Another legend says that he made seven. Over the centuries various monasteries and churches have claimed to have had one of wonderful pictures.

In Roman times canvasses were not used for pictures, but flat boards, which would give rise over the centuries to the Eastern Christian tradition of iconography. If the reader wishes to see one of these supposed portraits, one can be found at the following link which depicts Mary being venerated by two saints.






The legend was so strong in medieval times that several of the great masters have made oil paintings of Luke sketching the Virgin and Christ. This said, it is not hard to see how the legend emerged.

Luke the evangelist has more references to the Virgin Mary than does any other single author in the New Testament. In his biography of Jesus, Luke mentions the annunciation of the angel to Mary, her visit to Elizabeth, the Nativity, the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, and the later the discovery of Jesus in the Temple.

Luke also places Mary with the apostles at the Pentecost in the Book of Acts. Because of these references, some wags have called the Gospel of Luke "Mary's Baby Book." Interpreters of the Bible in Roman times assumed that Luke could have gotten these childhood references only from Mary herself, and they assumed that the evangelist knew her life well. It was in the later Roman era culture that the story of the portrait emerged.

There are a number of images of Mary found on cave walls in Egypt, where hermits decorated their cells with holy images, and there seem to be images of her on the walls of the Roman catacombs. The first known reference to a free-standing portrait of Mary is in the fifth century A.D. One historian tells us that the Empress Eudokia, the wife of the Christian emperor Theodosius II, found an image of Mary in Jerusalem and sent it to one of her relatives, who placed it in the great Hagia Sophia Cathedral.

How she found the image is not certain but she was convinced that it was Luke's painting. This writer apologizes for a trace of cynicism, by suggesting that it would be a foolish Jerusalem art dealer indeed who did not happen to have a "genuine" painting on hand when the wealthy empress came for a visit.

Eudokia's discovered image came to be known as the Hodegetria, or "she who shows the way." It was venerated with great honor in the Byzantine Empire and attracted many visitors and it was widely copied and imitated. In Eastern iconography there are still many versions of it, and the style shows Mary holding the Christ Child in one arm and pointing to him with the other.

From 1204 to 1261 the Byzantine Empire was ruled by Western Latin monarchs, because one of the crusades had been diverted from its effort to reclaim the Holy Land and decided to take over Constantinople instead. These gentlemen were driven out in 1261, and the last Latin Emperor, Baldwin II, is supposed to have taken the image with him.

Other accounts maintain that it stayed in Constantinople where the faithful continued to venerate it. The Hodegetria disappears again in 1453, when Islamic forces captured and looted the city. Thanks to both Baldwin II and the Islamic Turks, a number of monasteries and cathedrals now claim to have the original, each with a wonderful tale of how it was hidden from harm and spirited away to their holy site.

Egypt, Russia, Italy, Spain, Poland and other places have their claimants to the image. There is even a version of it in India, where the faithful believe they have one of seven such paintings, and in this case it got there with the Apostle Thomas. It comes as little surprise that St. Luke ended up as the
patron saint of artists."

By GREGORY ELDER