Greek art begins to develop a much stronger humanistic approach, now with a greater concern for naturalism and for conveying a strongly emotional quality.

A beautiful icon known as “Our Lady of Vladimir,” painted in Constantinople about 1130, shows the Virgin embracing the Child, no longer displaying her divine child to the people but interacting with it in more human terms, as the child turns toward her and clings to her neck.

The icon is a version of the Eleusa (tenderness) type.

Unlike some icons with a special following in religious terms the high artistic quality of the work is universally agreed, and the Vladimirskaya, as Russians call it, is generally accepted as the finest of the few Byzantine icons surviving from its period.