at that time, many artists painted pictures that were specially for people to look at while they were praying. the pictures are most often of the madonna and child. they often have gold backgrounds which glow when they are lit by candlelight. the figures in the paintings do not look very solid or realistic. they look very still, calm and holy. these paintings had been done in the same style for many hundreds of years, in greece, constantinople and many other countries where the greek orthodox church was the main church. the style, which was called the byzantine style, had also spread to italy where several orthodox icons (holy picture), had become famous and were copied by many artists.