Category: The Madonna

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 […]

Some other scenes of her early life, which in the Protevangelion are placed after her marriage with Joseph, in pictures usually precede it. Thus, she is chosen by lot to spin the fine purple for the temple, to weave and embroider it. Didron mentions a fine antique tapestry at Rheims, in which Mary is seated […]

Ital. Il Sposalizio. Fr. Le Mariage de la Vierge. Ger. Die Trauung Maria. (Jan. 23.) This, as an artistic subject, is of great consequence, from the beauty and celebrity of some of the representations, which, however, are unintelligible without the accompanying legends. And it is worth remarking, that while the incident is avoided in early […]

THE ANNUNCIATION Ital. L’ Annunciazione. La B. Vergine Annunziata. Fr. L’Annonciation. La Salutation Angélique. Ger. Die Verkündigung. Der englische Gruss. (March 25.) THE second part of the life of the Virgin Mary begins with the Annunciation and ends with the Crucifixion, comprising all those scriptural incidents which connect her history with that of her Divine […]

Considering the importance given to the Annunciation in its mystical sense, it is strange that we do not find it among the very ancient symbolical subjects adopted in the first ages of Christian Art. It does not appear on the sarcophagi, nor in the early Greek carvings and diptychs, nor in the early mosaics — […]

Had the Annunciation to Mary been merely mentioned as an awful and incomprehensible vision, it would have been better to have adhered to the mystical style of treatment, or left it alone altogether ; but the Scripture history, by giving the whole narration as a simple fact, a real event, left it free for representation […]

Ital. La Visitazione di Maria. Fr. La Visitation de la Vierge. Ger. Die Heimsuchung Maria. (July 2.) After the annunciation of the angel, the Scripture goes on to relate how ” Mary arose and went up into the hill country with haste, to the house of her cousin Elizabeth, and saluted her.” This meeting of […]

In this volume, as in the former ones, I have adhered to the distinction between the devotional and the historical representations. I class as devotional all those which express a dogma merely ; all the enthroned Madonnas, alone or surrounded by significant accessories or attendant saints ; all the Mystical Coronations and Immaculate Conceptions ; […]

Ital. La Madonna col Bambino. La Madonna col celeste suo Figlio. Fr. La Vierge et l’Enfant Jésus. Ger. Maria mit dem Kind. There is yet another treatment of the Madonna and Child, in which the Virgin no longer retains the lofty goddess-like exaltation given to her in the old time. She is brought nearer to […]

A beautiful version of the Mater Amabilis is the MADRE PIA, where the Virgin in her divine Infant acknowledges and adores the Godhead. We must be careful to distinguish this subject from the Nativity, for it is common, in the scene of the birth of the Saviour at Bethlehem, to represent the Virgin adoring her […]