Category: The Madonna

The simplest form of the family group is confined to two figures, and expresses merely the relation between the Mother and the Child. The motif is precisely the same as in the formal, goddess-like, enthroned Madonnas of the antique time ; but here quite otherwise worked out, and appealing to other sympathies. In the first […]

Although the Feast of the Visitation is fixed for the 2nd of July, it was, and is, a received opinion, that Mary began her journey to the hill country but a short time, even a few days, after the annunciation of the angel. It was the sixth month with Elizabeth, and Mary sojourned with her […]

Ital. Il Presepio. Il Nascimento del Nostro Signore. Fr. La Nativité. Ger. Die Geburt Christi. (Dec. 25.) The birth of our Saviour is related with characteristic simplicity and brevity in the Gospels ; but in the early Christian traditions this great event is preceded and accompanied by several circumstances which have assumed a certain importance […]

In the first sense, the artist has intended simply to express the advent of the Divinity on earth in the form of an infant, and the motif is clearly taken from a text in the Office of the Virgin, ” Virgo quem genuit adoravit.” In the beautiful words of Jeremy Taylor, ” She blessed him, […]

We now come to the Nativity as historically treated, in which time, place, and circumstance have to be considered as in any other actual event. The time was the depth of winter, at midnight ; the place a poor stable. According to some authorities, this stable was the interior of a cavern, still shown at […]

That which the genius of the greatest of painters only once expressed, we must not look to find in his predecessors, who saw only partial glimpses of the union of the divine and human in the feminine form; still less in his degenerate successors, who never beheld it at all. The difficulty of fully expressing […]

THE LEGEND OF JOACHIM AND ANNA Ital. La Leggenda di Sant Anna Madre della Gloriosa Vergine Maria, e di San Gioacchino. OF the sources whence are derived the popular legends of the life of the Virgin Mary, which, mixed up with the few notices in Scripture, formed one continuous narrative, authorized by the priesthood, and […]

Ital. La Nascità della B. Vergine. Fr. La Naissance de la S. Vierge. Ger. Die Geburt Maria. This is, of course, a very important subject. It is sometimes treated apart as a separate scene ; and a series of pictures dedicated to the honor of the Virgin, and comprising only a few of the most […]

Ital. La Presentazione, ove nostra Signora piccioletta sale i gradi del Tempio. Ger. Joachim and Anna weihen ihre Tochter Maria im Tempel. Die Vorstellung der Jungfrau im Tempel. (Nov. 21.) In the interval between the birth of Mary and her consecration in the temple there is no incident which I can remember as being important […]

From the life of the Virgin in the temple we have several beautiful pictures. As she was to be placed before women as an example of every virtue, so she was skilled in all feminine accomplishments ; she was as studious, as learned, as wise, as she was industrious, chaste, and temperate. She is seen […]