"Full of Grace"

The Evolution of Portrayals of the Madonna and Child in Western European Art

     The Virgin Mary has been an object of Christian veneration for centuries in the Western world. As attitudes toward Catholic doctrine changed and evolved from medieval to Renaissance Europe, the role of Mary as a symbol of feminine virtue and the interpretation of divine motherhood changed as well. This change in religious attitude is visible in the artistic representations of Mary in each of these periods, such as the 12^th century sculpture The Virgin and Child (Virgin in Majesty) and in Andrea di Bartolo’s Italian Renaissance painting, The Madonna with the Green Cushion. 

     The Virgin and Child (Fig. 1) is a piece of Romanesque  woodwork believed to have been carved during the years between 1125-1150 by an unknown artist in Auvergne, France. The term “Romanesque” refers to the influence of ancient Roman—but not quite Classical—styles and techniques on medieval European architecture.[1] The Catholic Church was the only permitted form of Christianity in the 12^th century, and there was no distinction in Western Europe at this time between Church and state.[2] Religion was entirely integrated into the lives of the common people in the forms of both traditional doctrine and popular practice, holding enormous influence over their culture and society. 

     The popularity of the Madonna in visual representation grew after the year 431 when she was officially declared “God-bearing,” or theotokos, by the Council of Ephesus. Such seated images of the Virgin with Christ on her knee are referred to as Nikopoia, meaning “Bringer of Victory.” In this motif, Mary is considered the vehicle of God for delivering the human incarnation of His Word. She, herself, is depicted as what Alan Shestack calls “a regal throne for the personage of Christ.”[3] The illustrated Nikopoia appeared as a 3-dimensional sculpture for the first time between approximately the years 925-950 by Bishop Etienne II of Clermont, who had the image reproduced as a wooden reliquary plated with gold.[4] At this time, traditional reliquaries consisted of caskets or jewel-encrusted houses for the relics, and the novel Clermont Vierge d’Or would attract thousands of pilgrims en route to Santiago da Compostella. By the end of the 12^th century, when the cult of the Virgin Mary in Christianity was at its peak, every town in central France came to own a similar statue. Since gold and jewels were accessible only by the wealthiest religious institutions, the majority of churches in France fashioned their devotional images out of wood, like the Virgin and Child of Auvergne.[5] 

     The Virgin and Child is a small wooden reliquary carved from walnut. The Virgin Mary sits rigidly, as if on a throne, and holds the Christ-child in her lap with an oversized hand formally resting around His waist characteristic of these sculptures. This is not a casual, familiar pose for the mother and son. While childlike in size, the boy Jesus is represented with the mature dignity and majesty of the Judge of the World. Raising His right hand in benediction, He sits and stares in transcendent stillness that would be eerily unnatural in an ordinary human toddler. The dignity with which Mary is carved matches that of her son. While detailed attention is paid to the draperies of her robe and voluminous sleeves, little ornamental detail is added to soften the austerity of the Madonna’s expression beyond the most basic facial features. The rigid, “frozen in time” depiction of the pair is indicative of the medieval Christian characterization of Christ as the Word, the regal observer and judge of all things, and of the Madonna, the venerated instrument of God, both omnipresent in daily medieval life. 

     Western European culture underwent a dramatic period of change in the following centuries.  In the 1300s, the Italian Francesco Petrarch and his studies of the Latin classics sparked the movement of Renaissance humanism, which sought to apply the writings of ancient Roman scholars to find solutions to the civic problems of the Italian city-states.[6] Popular religion from this point on would never be the same. While religion continued to be a primary focal point of European society, the Renaissance introduced a humanistic approach to Christianity that emphasized moral philosophy in the secular world over theology. Renaissance Italians identified themselves as the bringers of a new Golden Age for Italy, and while they embraced their Roman past with open minds and open arms, they consequently rejected all things medieval. This newfound appreciation for ancient Roman philosophy and culture had profound and revolutionary effects on all aspects of society, including science, music, politics, literature, and art. 

     One Italian painter to be influenced by the techniques and themes of the Renaissance was Andrea di Bartolo (1460-1524), otherwise known as Solario. Solario’s hometown, Milan, was one of many independent, self-governing, Italian city-states. These city-states experienced intense rivalry with one another, and consistently strove to outdo one another in cultural, territorial, and military achievement. This competitive and culturally driven environment resulted in the magnificent movements in art and society, but also meant that the city-states suffered almost constant turmoil in war and political instability. External forces added additional pressures to the city-states as other European powers sought power over strategically located and economically flourishing Italian territories.[7]

     The duchy of Milan at the time of Solario was ruled by the Sforza dukes, who, like many of the wealthy, influential Italian lords, were great patrons of the arts. Throughout the late 15^th to early 16^th centuries, power over Milan switched from Sforza, to French, to Imperial hands. Such political turmoil greatly impacted the local artists and their work.[8] As foreign European powers craved both Italian lands as well as Italian influences at home, it was common for talented Renaissance minds to travel and contribute their talents abroad. Solario himself traveled to France in 1507, and it is possible that his most famous painting, Madonna with the Green Cushion, was produced during this time.

     In his Madonna with the Green Cushion (Fig. 2), Solario has painted Mary as an everyday, flesh-and-blood woman with a chubby cheerful baby. This depiction is a drastic departure from the frozen, iconic figures of the Nikopoia. While in the wooden reliquary, Jesus and Mary sit rigidly, with the miniature adult Christ facing away from the mother acting solely as His throne, Solario’s Madonna and Child gaze adoringly into each other’s eyes with particularly intimacy. The downward tilt of Mary’s head directs the viewer’s focus to Jesus, as one follows the direction of her gaze into the face of the rosy pink Son of God. While images of the Madonna breastfeeding an infant Christ are not new, Solario’s heartful, naturalistic, deeply humane portrayal lacks the iconic stylization of the Byzantine Galactotrophousa types.[9] The relatability of the posture of Mary in Renaissance images such as Solario’s shifts emphasis away from the personage of the Madonna as a distant, majestic instrument, to her secular, maternal relationship with Jesus, her son. Mary is no less a subject of veneration, but the humanity with which she is conceptualized here is a clear example of the humanistic approach to religion spreading through Europe in the 16^th century.

     Madonna with the Green Cushion is a painting that exudes softness. The figures of Mary and the Christ-child are rounded and full. The texture and colour with which Solario has painted the Madonna’s face and hair portray her as a figure of sweetness and idealized, Neoplatonic beauty. Baby Jesus clasps his kicking feet in a realistically childlike behaviour, while sucking milk from Mary’s round, right breast. The plush garments of the Virgin, as well as the thick cushion cradling baby Jesus that dominates the lower left-hand corner, completes the comforting, warm atmosphere of this mother-child scene. The influence of Solario’s teacher, Leonardo da Vinci, is visible in this work.[10] The bright, jewel-toned colours painted in oil popping against the varying shades of lush green landscape in the background are strikingly reminiscent of da Vinci’s Lamentation, supplying additional life and vibrancy to the Biblical characters and contrasting significantly from the rigid severity of sculpted Nikopoia.

      

     Solario’s representation of the Madonna and Child is almost unrecognizable as the same pair carved in the Auvergne reliquary, yet the subjects the same. As the Christian religion so thoroughly pervaded European life, artists included Christian figures in the pieces they created that reflected the ideas and values of their particular time. They communicated their values through depictions of Biblical figures to share a story or an idea with the public. The ideas and values of Western Europe evolved over time, changing the faces of the Madonna and Child as representatives of their faith along with them. 

     In the Middle Ages, the emphasis on Mary and Jesus as majestic powers immortally presiding over the universe produced rigid, regal sculptures like the Nikopoia reliquary, Virgin and Child. Such images inspired impressions of royalty and eternity that coincided with the medieval concept of God, the omnipresent judge. The introduction of humanism during the Renaissance turned Italians to seek guidance in Christianity for  well-lived, secular lives among fellow humans over the ambiguous future life in heaven they had sought in the past. This produced the relatable depiction of Mary breastfeeding the baby Jesus in Solario’s 16^th century painting. The very personal portrayal of the Madonna and Christ represents the Renaissance interest in their religion as source of guidance over the very real world they lived in with their very real problems that they, as humans had to solve. However much the image of the Virgin Mary has changed throughout art—whether enthroned in majesty or maternally cradling a fat, hungry baby—viewers can be assured that when they look upon the image of the Madonna and all the virtues and ideals carved or painted onto her person, they are looking into the very face of the culture that produced her.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

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[1] Michael W. Cothren and Marilyn Stokstad, “Early Medieval and Romanesque Art,” in Art: A Brief History (New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2010), 256.

[2] Jeffrey L. Singman, Daily Life in Medieval Europe (London: The Greenwood Press, 1999), 12-13.

[3] Alan Shestack, “A Romanesque Wooden Sculpture of the Madonna and Child Enthroned.” Acquisitions (Fugg Art Museum) 1964, (1964): 20.

[4] Ibid, 22.

[5] Cothren and Stokstad, 268.

[6] Johnathan Zophy, A Short History of Renaissance and Reformation Europe: Dances over Fire and Water (New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009), 72.

[7] Ibid, 48.

[8] Andrea Bayer, “North of the Apennines: Sixteenth-Century Italian Painting in Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna,” in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series 60 (2003): 7.

[9] Victor Lasareff, “Studies in the Iconography of the Virgin,” in The Art Bulletin 20 (1938): 27-28.

[10] Bayer, 14-16.