THE APOSTLES CARRY THE BODY OF THE VIRGIN TO THE TOMB. This is a very uncommon subject. There is a most beautiful example by Taddeo Bartolo (Siena, Palazzo Pubblico) full of profound religious feeling. There is a small engraving by Bonasone, in a series of the Life of the Virgin, apparently after Parmigiano, in which […]

THE ENTOMBMENT. In the early pictures there is little distinction between this subject and the death of the Virgin. If the figure of Christ stand over the recumbent form, holding in his arms the emancipated soul, then it is the Transito — the death or sleep; but when a sarcophagus is in the centre of […]

THE ASSUMPTION. The old painters distinguished between the Assumption of the soul and the Assumption of the body of the Virgin. In the first instance, at the moment the soul is separated from her body, Christ receives it into his keeping, standing in person either beside her death-bed or above it. But in the Assumption […]

THE CORONATION of the Virgin follows the Assumption. In some instances this final consummation of her glorious destiny supersedes, or rather includes, her ascension into heaven. As I have already observed, it is necessary to distinguish this scenic Coronation from the mystical INCORONATA, properly so called, which is the triumph of the allegorical church, and […]

Our Lady of Succor. Ital. La Madonna di Misericordia. Fr. Notre Dame de Miséricorde. Ger. Maria Mutter des Erbarmens. Sp. Nuestra Senora de Gracia. When once the Virgin had been exalted and glorified in the celestial paradise, the next and the most natural result was, that she should be regarded as being in heaven the […]

THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS and the DEPOSITION are two separate themes. In the first, according to the antique formula, the Virgin should stand ; for here, as in the Crucifixion, she must be associated with the principal action, and not, by the excess of her grief, disabled from taking her part in it. In […]

THE DEPOSITION is properly that moment which succeeds the DESCENT from the Cross ; when the dead form of Christ is deposed or laid upon the ground, resting on the lap of his Mother, and lamented by St. John, the Magdalene, and others. The ideal and devotional form of this subject, styled a Pietà, may […]

The ENTOMBMENT follows, and when treated as a strictly historical scene, the Virgin Mother is always introduced, though here as a less conspicuous figure, and one less important to the action. Either she swoons, which is the ancient Greek conception : or she follows, with streaming eyes and clasped hands, the pious disciples who bear […]

The group of three figures most commonly met with is that of the Mother and Child with St. John. One of the earliest examples of the domestic treatment of this group is a quaint picture by Botticelli, in which Mary, bending down, holds forth the Child to be caressed by St. John—very dry in color, […]

In a Holy Family of four figures, we have frequently the Virgin, the Child, and the Infant St. John, with St. Joseph standing by. Raphael’s Madonna del Passeggio is an example. In a picture by Palma Vecchio, St. John presents a lamb, while St. Joseph kneels before the Infant Christ, who, seated on his mother’s […]