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anthonywashrosado · 5 years

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The Advancement of the Sacred Image of Madonna and Christ in the Italian Renaissance

The sacred image of Madonna and Christ played both a devotional and maternal role in the advancement of Italian Renaissance art. It’s dynamic role in the lives of Renaissance-era devout Christians sustained the generational vitality that has produced modern day, globalized Christianity. A visual aid was required, by the western canon of art, to be mounted within churches; to enable followers to worship Saints and participate in prayer. This was not the same case for Islamic art, since it denounced idolatry of a humanized Prophet. This juxtaposition of iconographic religious ideologies renders all western religious art determinable by western canonical standards, or value judgments. Christianity still demands that its subjects worship objects, created as associative models of the Saint referenced. It was understood that these inanimate objects, whether painting or sculpture or decorative art, were distinct from Mary and the Lord themselves. The general consensus among Christians was that artworks could not hold the power of the holy figure, but contained enough spiritual essence to be used as symbols during prayer. As western art revolutionized in style, technique and form, so did the presentation of Jesus and the Virgin. Specifically, during the Italian Renaissance, advanced and relevant techniques in painterly education, which were lighting, spacing, tone, anatomical proportionality, and three-dimensionality, were implemented to better depict Mary and her Son.

The Annunciation is the precursor to the three most prominent scenes of Madonna and Christ: the birth, presentation, and lamentation. There was ample freedom in recreating the Annunciation because artists in the Renaissance were capable of illustrating diversely imagined scenes of an angel passing the Christian God’s message to Mary. The wealth of options that

artists of this era had to portray the varying elements of this scene were, and are, nearly limitless. Allegories of biblical events were privileged more creativity than factual, or historical, events pertaining to human history. This autonomy was credible only if the three main parts of the story were adequately referenced: the moment before the angel arrives, the message retrieval, and Mary’s inevitable reaction. Simone Martini decided to place the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary on opposite sides of the center of the frame, facing each other in his 1355Annunciation(Figure 1). Gliding over the calla lillies is the quote, “Ave Maria, gratia plena. Dominus tecum.” This Latin phrase translates to, “Greetings, most favored one. The Lord is with thee.” This was the message being passed.

Mary was to carry the son of the Christian God in her womb. She sits, enthroned in a golden seat with intricate floral designs. In her left hand she mirrors the representation of the lilies’ purity by having the bible slightly parted, with her thumb acting as a place-holder for the passage she was reading. Martini effectively captured her in the middle of this holy act. She is dressed in the original blue drapers with detailed insignia on the hems. Mary pulls at the collar of her dress to gesture her surprise and shock. Her counterpart kneels before her, in a golden dress and brown cape with plaid on its interior. The angel’s halo shines and their elegant wings spread skyward. Their head leans forward, as if expressing to the Virgin that they mean her no harm.

Aside from an abstract model of a sun made from birds in the center pointed arch, the space is filled with the curiosity of this angel’s appearance. The spectator can identify Mary’s hesitation. She does not yet comprehend the miracle that the bible claims is bestowed upon her. On either side of the columns that enclose this scene are St. Ansasus, the patron saint of Siena (on the left) and Stu. Julietta (on the right). St. Ansasus stands with his focus on the audience,

with a feather in one hand and staff in the other. He is a direct symbol signifying commitment to Christianity and the holy word. After being secretly baptized by his nurse, St. Ansasus grew to be known as a devout Christian. Though tortured and imprisoned, he culminated a passion for his spiritual practice and preached the word of his Christian God. This persistence resulted in his decapitation by order of Diocletian. St. Julietta similarly maintains her symbolism of pious Christian devotion. She predominantly represents the story of a mother taking pride in her son’s death due to its martyrdom for Christianity. She stands with a cross and a palm leaf. She and her son, Cyricus, were held captive because of their religious denomination. While she was tortured, her son scratched the face of the governor who, in turn, killed Cyricus by throwing the three year old down a flight of steps.

St. Juletta did not immediately mourn the loss of her child. She praised his ability to act in favor of Christianity and his martyrdom. After enduring more brutality at the hands of men, she was beheaded. These Saints could be perceived as precedence for the trials Jesus and Mary confronted. Martini combines these three stories within a Gothic altarpiece. Spiral columns segment the the separate yet united stories. Each arch highlights each Saint and the desire for elevation, which emboldened the aesthetic prowess of the painting. The intricacy of texture and form enabled adoration of these stories, to a degree that arguable surpasses previous depictions of the Annunciation scene. The oval faces of the individuals and frieze poses example the naturalistic mission of human form in early Italian Renaissance art. Later, implementations of detail in the anatomical framework progressed Renaissance artists’ realistic renderings of Madonna and Christ.

In the original story of the birth of Christ, Mary is not in a glorified position nor is there a midwife present to help her in the caretaking of Jesus. The setting, which is of course interchangeable in grandiose paintings, is merely a shed. The actual process of labor is skipped, or not mentioned, in the original version. This presumes Mary did not suffer during childbirth. She stands during labor, to more efficiently produce baby Jesus. Only Joseph is present, presiding as bother her emotional support and creating a cradle for his son out of hay and a saddle. Finally, Mary’s veil is used to wrap and protect her newborn. The Virgin’s position during birth is uncommon because she is not in a lavish setting, as the mother of the Christian God’s son has always been portrayed. The climate is as manipulatable as the shed. Sometimes it is snowing, other times the sun is blazing obvious heat. Their geographic location can agreeably be placed in the middle east. This factor is crucial in determining whether Jesus was melanated, or non-melanated person traveling in the sun for years without a tan to evidence his laborious lifestyle. Nonetheless, a blonde or brunette Jesus is the iconographic visual representation of Christ during the Italian Renaissance and across the western world today.

Artists, like history-tellers of their era, betrayed historicity and exhibited ornate scenery to amplify reverence to the divinity of Christ’s birth. In Giotto’s 1305 Madonna and Child (Figure 2) in the Arena Chapel, the Virgin is placing her son into the arms of her midwife. Albeit damaged due to weathering and other external forces, this fresco still holds true to his painterly language and the prerequisite narrative details for creating this scene. Baby Jesus and his mother look into each other’s eyes. Their halos shimmer a gold that stands out from every red, green, or brown pigment in this piece. A circle is formed within the arms of Mary and the body of baby Jesus, causing a central point that is difficult to detract one’s spectating eyes from. In clothing

incomparable to that of the Virgin’s extravagance, the midwife does not pull focal attention from the holy act she witnesses. The exchange between mother and child reflects an obvious curiosity of the other’s presence, which reads as enticing and visually intriguing. Another word is love; the unconditional kind. The eye of the taurus and beam in the background are two sections of the painting that return the viewer to the main event of the work. In addition, the detailed fabric differs from the texture of the haloes. This makes it difficult for the audience to avoid the stunning embrace of this private and exposed moment. This first image of Madonna and her child has been documented in exceedingly numerous ways. Each artist embellished and exemplified the moment in which Christ was born as a means of properly encapsulating the Christian ideal amongst painters of the same faith.

With the ability to alleviate any immediate dangers, Madonna is today a globally praised Saint. During the Italian Renaissance, works of her would be crowded by religious followers mesmerized by her beauty, symbolic values, and nurturing holy presence. They relied on her for safety, erecting glass-encased sculptures and paintings in cities across Italy. Advancement in the expression of this scene lies in the improvement of three-dimensionality, textural differentiation, and realistic anatomical form. All of these qualities are exampled when comparing Cimabue’s 1280 Virgin and Child Enthroned(Figure 3) and Giotto’s 1310 Ognissanti Madonna(Figure 4). With the same pentagonal frame, the two pieces illustrate Madonna enthroned and presenting the baby Christ seated on her lap. In Cimabue’s version, the Virgin holds Jesus on her left knee and motioning for the spectator to approach him with her right hand. She is surrounded by angels, who are two-dimensionally stacked atop one another. Below her golden throne are four Prophets or Saints, two of which are gazing at the spectator above them.

The serpentine shapes of the throne and drapery construct the outline of the throne and drapery, however the two seem to be on the same plane. Proper dimensionality is evidenced in Giotto’s version, where below Madonna’s feet is a curved portion of the throne which is more reminiscent of an archway than a simple semi-spherical line acting as architecture. Giotto paints a Mary who allows Christ to present himself. She gives him a place to sit and the autonomy to define himself. Although she does not dramatize the importance of his existence, this version grounds this scene’s significance in Christian history; as well as the relationship between mother and child. In terms of anatomical proportionality, it is more overt that Jesus is sitting in Giotto’s painting. This is due to Cimabue’s lack of expertise in constructing form in harmony with three-dimensional shading and foreshortening.

In Ognissanti Madonnathe ripples in her drapery extends to her knees, yet in Virgin and Child Enthronedthe audience can only make out a foot and two knee bumps. The audience can assume it is her left foot, however Cimabue’s greatest feat her was in his exquisite gold leaf installments. The shading within the throne of Giotto’s Madonna has has ample space for her to lean back into if she please. Also, the wings of angels are foreshortened, creating a focal perspective that is realistic for the viewer. Cimabue’s angels are identically stacked, but they are more realistically in a crowd in Giotto’s painting. Not only does there seem to be more of a presentation, Giotto’s angels differ in gender-binary sexes and facial features which displays the authentic diversity of human anatomy. Due to his apperception of spatial awareness, Giotto actualized an image that realistically exhibited Madonna, Christ, and their guests.

Where Cimabue’s scene is cramped into the frame, Giotto’s is a focused snapshot of a detail from a larger picture; with breathing space between objects so the spectator can

competently decipher the painting. This allots the viewers the option of being part of this painted presentation, which can only be said for Giotto’s interpretation. Cimabue’s scene is overcrowded and lacks enough planes to produce three-dimensional realism. In more ways than one, the image of Madonna presenting her child was expressed similarly in most Italian Renaissance art. This included the use of detail, shading, lighting, vibrant colors, symbols, and more techniques to evoke worship via aesthetic excellence.

The trilogy’s final scene is the moment after Christ’s death, Lamentation.To portray the birth or Annunciation, there is free-range regarding the ways in which types of beauty are implemented. However, it is agreed that expressing a still-framed tableau of a mother’s response to the murder of her first-born child, who was killed for the sins of Christians, is far more difficult to accomplish. It is complicated to choose an avenue to aid the viewer in empathizing with Christ and his Sacred Mother, while displaying visceral death. Routes taken spanned from figures with a calm demeanor looked toward a pale and dirtied Christ nailed in stigmata, to a muscular and neoclassical Jesus that is far more picturesque.

Later in the Italian Renaissance, Michelangelo constructed an advanced sculpture for St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City: his 1499 Pieta (Figure). He chooses a beautiful moment that is filled with an emotional silence. Madonna sits with her dead child’s limp body splayed on her lap. Her head is bowed, looking not in any specific direction, in deep thought. One arm holds the upper body of Christ from falling, close to her body; her core; her womb. Her other hand extends, yet is still close to her son. This is a moment of inexplicable grief. The position of her hand can be seen as a gesture of mourning because it is not tense nor in motion. It has a peaceful undertone. Further expressing her last act of maternal care, her legs spread to the length of

Christ’s torso. Her right leg rests on a higher portion of the ground, lifting Christ’s frail body. Her draper, though large and magnificent, is cleverly sculpted. A swoop in the fabric emphasized her heightened leg and makes it clear to the viewer that she is supporting her son’s body.

To idolatrize and respect the authenticity of Christ has been a struggle for many Italitan Renaissance artists who attempted Lamentation. Michelangelo returns Jesus to the place from whence he came, which cycles the spectator from the final to the first of the three sacred images of Madonna and Christ. He carved Jesus into a realistic form that portrayed the beauty of Christ the individual and the starvation that kills any human body. Christ’s head hangs past Mary’s elbow, released of all tension of his no-longer-living body. This is how a dead head would hang without support to the rear of one’s skull. The skin on Christ’s right underarm is pinched upward, responding to the position he is held in and decaying process of his body. Pietaproves, even in death, the bond between a mother and her child is identifiably powerful.

Michelangelo chose an instance of silent realization for Madonna. She tenderly comforts the body of a son who died for the sins of Pieta’s Christian viewers. This new approach, opposite of the exaggerated gestures of sorrow and pain in previous interpretations, is utilized to help the audience sympathize with both figures. The skill and emotionality of Pietareflects the advancement of Italian Renaissance art, which was built upon the foundation of earlierartist who discovered while exploring new methods and styles. The Italian Renaissance gave way to generations of artists that would both teach and influence one another in various ways to successfully mend their effectivity regarding narrative coherence. The sacred image of Madonna and Christ developed via artists who tampered with medium, space, form, expression, levels, three-dimensionality, anatomical proportionality, lighting, shadow, texture, and setting; to teach

uneducated Christians and remind the devoted of the emotional factors pertinent to Christ’s birth, life, and sacrifice.

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