Madonna (art)

• 1. Introduction

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  Madonna (art) names one of the most enduring images in the history of painting, sculpture, and mosaic: the Virgin Mary, alone or holding the infant Jesus, rendered in materials ranging from ivory to lapis lazuli to glazed terracotta. What makes a face painted in the Catacombs of Rome in the 2nd century the same tradition as a terracotta figurine carved in Goa under Jesuit guidance in the 16th century? Why did the Prophet Muhammad, at the moment of his greatest triumph, raise his hand to protect one particular painting on the wall of the Kaaba? And how did a theological argument settled at the Council of Ephesus in 431 produce a torrent of images that has not stopped flowing for sixteen centuries? These are the questions this documentary will follow.

• 2. A Word Shaped by Devotion

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  The Italian phrase Ma Donna, meaning "My Lady," descends from the Latin Mea Domina, itself drawn from the Greek title Despoina. When that liturgy, praising Mary as a powerful intercessor, traveled from Greek into Latin tradition in the 8th century, the title came with it. French adopted a parallel form: Nostre Dame, "Our Lady." The word entered English usage as an art-historical term in the 1640s, designating specifically the Marian art of the Italian Renaissance. It was not yet a universal label. In Eastern Orthodox practice the same image was called the Theotokos, meaning "God-bearer," a title formally confirmed at Ephesus in 431. The two terms carve out distinct territories. "Madonna" in English applies almost exclusively to western works; referring to the Theotokos of Vladimir as the "Madonna of Vladimir" is possible but uncommon. The name, in other words, carries geography inside it. That geographical narrowness widened only gradually. The color blue symbolized purity, virginity, and royalty, and the pigment ultramarine, derived from lapis lazuli mined in Afghanistan, was reserved for only the most important commissions, such as the robes of the Virgin Mary in Gerard David's Virgin and Child with Female Saints.

• 3. The Council That Changed Art

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  In 431, the Council of Ephesus formally confirmed Mary's status as Theotokos, settling what had been a subject of controversy. The effect on art was immediate. Mosaics in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, dated to 432-440, show Mary just after this ruling, and at that moment she does not yet have a halo. She is also absent from Nativity scenes in those mosaics, though she appears in the Adoration of the Magi. Within a century, the iconic image of the Virgin enthroned with the infant Christ was firmly established. A surviving group of icons at Saint Catherine's Monastery in Egypt shows this type at its earliest preserved form. The icon at Mount Sinai manages to hold two aspects of Mary in tension: her humility and her exaltation above other humans. The Hand of God appears above, and two archangels gaze upward toward it. In Rome, an early icon of the Virgin as queen in the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere can be dated to 705-707 by the presence of a kneeling figure of Pope John VII, a noted promoter of the cult of the Virgin. The roughly half-dozen icons of the Virgin and Child in Rome from the 6th-8th century constitute the majority of surviving representations from that period.

• 4. How Byzantine Art Moved West

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  Byzantium, which lasted from 324 to 1453, considered itself the true Rome, a Greek-speaking Christian empire. Colonies of Italians lived among its citizens, participated in Crusades at the borders of its land, and ultimately plundered its churches and monasteries. Two of the oldest independent images of the Virgin Mary surviving in Rome trace directly to Byzantine technique: both were painted in tempera, that is, egg yolk and ground pigments on wooden panels, sharing the ancient Roman heritage of Byzantine icons. One is a valued possession of Santa Maria in Trastevere; the other, repainted and damaged, is venerated at the Pantheon, rededicated to Mary as an expression of the Church's triumph. Later in the Middle Ages, the Cretan school became the main source of icons for the West, and Cretan artists could adapt their style to Western iconography when required. The earliest surviving image of the Madonna and Child in a Western illuminated manuscript comes from the Book of Kells, dated to about 800 CE. A similar carved image appears on the lid of St Cuthbert's coffin of 698. Both are magnificently decorated but the figures, compared to Byzantine work of the same period, were crude. Images of the Virgin remained sparse in manuscript art until the Book of Hours was created in the 13th century.

• 5. Gold Leaf, Lapis, and Commission

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  It was the revival of monumental panel painting in Italy during the 12th and 13th centuries that spread the Madonna image beyond Rome, particularly throughout Tuscany. Lay organizations called confraternities paid for some of these images, gathering to sing praises of the Virgin in chapels inside newly reconstructed churches. Gold leaf, applied to all parts of a panel not covered with paint, made the image visually equivalent to the costly gold sheaths that medieval goldsmiths used to decorate altars. More precious still was lapis lazuli blue, the pigment obtained from a stone mined only in Afghanistan at that time, through mines that were very hard to access and required a laborious purification process. Because gold leaf is extremely thin, more lapis lazuli paint by weight was typically needed than gold to cover large areas. When a patron wanted this pigment, he explicitly required it in the contract. Duccio's Rucellai Madonna, executed for the Laudesi confraternity at Santa Maria Novella in Florence around 1285, combined both materials in one of the most monumental works he produced. He then made an even grander image for the high altar of the cathedral of Siena: the Maesta, completed between 1308 and 1311, placing the Madonna and Christ as the center of a densely populated court, set above a predella of narrative scenes, prophets, and saints. A more modestly scaled half-length Duccio Madonna, made for private devotion, is now in the National Gallery of London.

• 6. Types, Postures, and Purposes

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  Different ritual needs generated different pictorial types. The Madonna of Humility, showing Mary seated on the ground or a low cushion, emerged from Franciscan piety and is perhaps attributable to Simone Martini. By 1375 examples had appeared in Spain, France, and Germany. The Nursing Madonna, also called Virgo Lactans or Madonna Lactans, shows Mary breastfeeding the infant Jesus; Leonardo da Vinci's Madonna Litta is one example. Because images of a nursing Virgin were largely confined to private devotional use, they rarely appeared in public chapels. The Hodegetria type, one of the most famous Byzantine images, shows Mary pointing to Christ as the source of salvation; most surviving copies are at half-length, though the original was a full-length standing figure. The Eleusa type, whose name in Greek means tenderness or showing mercy, places the Christ Child nestled against Mary's cheek. In Renaissance painting, particularly High Renaissance painting, large altarpieces grouped saints informally around the Madonna and Child in a compositional format known as Sacra conversazione. Raphael's Sistine Madonna depicts the standing Madonna with a full-length Christ; his Madonna della Seggiola, painted in 1532-1534, conveys what one source describes as the quality of a real person while simultaneously transmitting her purity and saintliness. Botticelli's Madonna Adoring the Child with Five Angels and the type called Madonna Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child were usually small and intended for personal devotion.

• 7. Islam, India, and Wider Worlds

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  The first significant encounter between Islam and the image of the Madonna is traced by historians to 629 CE, when Muhammad conquered Mecca. According to accounts collected by Ibn Ishaq and al-Azraqi, after entering the Kaaba, Muhammad placed his hand protectively over a painting of Mary and Jesus and a fresco of Abraham, directing his companions to efface all other images. The historian Barnaby Rogerson recorded that Muhammad raised his hand to protect an icon of the Virgin and Child and a painting of Abraham, while his companions cleared the interior of other votive treasures and cult objects. The Islamic scholar Martin Lings described the painting as one a Christian had been allowed and even encouraged to place inside the Kaaba. In Goa, under Portuguese rule from the 16th century onward, a different kind of encounter took place. Indian sculptors carved small, portable ivory statuettes that blended Catholic iconography with local artistic traditions. Art historian Gauvin Alexander Bailey noted that Jesuit art commissions were a partnership in which the artists' own interpretations were encouraged and fostered. The Shree Devakikrishna Temple at Marcel in Goa was reportedly spared destruction by the Portuguese because the idol of Devaki holding the infant Krishna reminded them of the Virgin Mary with Jesus. In Bengal, the Chore Bagan Art Studio published a print titled Birth of Krishna that was almost entirely based on popular prints of the Birth of Jesus Christ, including the presence of three wise men. The poet Nirendranath Chakraborty, one of the finest modern poets of Bengal, later wrote a poem titled Kolkatar Jishu, the Jesus of Calcutta, drawing on this same mother-and-child imagery.

• 8. Madonna in Modern Streets

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  Across parts of Europe the Madonna did not remain inside churches. In Germany, a statue placed on the outside of a building is called a Hausmadonna, and many date back to the Middle Ages while new ones are still produced today. These sculptures are typically found at the level of the second floor or higher, often on the corner of a house. The city of Mainz alone was said to have had more than 200 such statues before World War II. The variety ranges from Madonnas holding grapes, referencing Song of Songs 1:14, to purely white immaculate Madonnas without child or accessories, to Madonnas with roses symbolizing the mysteries of faith. In Italy, roadside Madonnas placed in small enclosures along roads or on building walls are understood to bring spiritual relief to those who pass. In the 1920s, the Daughters of the American Revolution placed statues called the Madonna of the Trail from coast to coast, marking the route of the old National Road and the Santa Fe Trail. In 2015, iconographer Mark Dukes created Our Lady of Ferguson, depicting the Madonna and child in relation to the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The painter Ray Martin Abeyta spent his life creating works inspired by the Cusco School style, blending traditional Madonna iconography with contemporary Latino subject matter and the colonial encounters between Europeans and Mesoamericans.