Schone Madonna is a German term meaning “Beautiful Madonna”. This image possibly originated as a response to new ways to practice religion, and in particular, worship of the Virgin in a more personal manner. Three examples of this representation include the Roudnice Madonna, the Madonna of Krumau, and the Jihlava Pieta.
The Roudnice Madonna, a 35 1/2” x 26 1/4” panel constructed in approximately 1400, effectively shows the focus on amore soft and attractive Mary than seen in previous depictions. Using chiaroscuro, the artist modeled a beautiful face for the Virgin. The Christ child is more at ease than ever, relaxing comfortably with his mother. The drapery of the Virgin’s gown, similarly seen on the statues of this type, are full and rhythmic, extending to the wrist. This image of Mary is considered to be the finest image developed by the Bohemian sculptors, likely created for South Bohemian courts.
This new Madonna developed roots from the intense level of worship for the Virgin Mary at this time in history in Europe. There was a new desire to show this idol as a beautiful princess, not as a humble servant or out-of-reach queen. The Schone Madonna became the Bohemian feminine ideal.
The three basic prototypes for the “Beautiful Madonna”, Krumau, Thorn, and Breslau, are all very similar, with graceful postures, made of the same material, approximately the same height, and around the same time period. Of these, the Madonna of Krumau is considered the best and most famous. A stone sculpture, 4’3”, dating to approximately 1390-1400, it was created by a Bohemian artist who focused on Schone Madonna figures. This piece “embodies the beau ideal as the chaste princess of the Late Gothic age.” (p.31 textbook) Mary has a poised head on a long neck emerging from narrow shoulders, with a charming face and high forehead. Her long fingers gently, but firmly grasp her young son, while he makes eye contact with the viewer. The Madonna’s drapery is poetic in abstraction, a Schone Madonna style characteristic. The gentle “S” curve of her body allows for elegant cascades of draped cloth. (p. 31 textbook)
The Jihlava Pieta was sculpted of stone by a Bohemian artist around 1400-1410. This composition is formed by a seated Madonna, and the diagonal is marked by a rigid Christ. (p. 32 textbook) Mary almost looks happy to see her once suffering son dead, and this is somewhat disturbing.
La Pietà of Giovanni Della Robbia is amazing religious glazed and painted terracotta dated 1510-1520. It was mainly intended to introduce the meaning of the Bible story to large and mainly illiterate audiences. One of the things that this image can tell us about life in western civilization is how much the artists were focused on translating the bible and trying to understand it without the help of the Catholic Church through art and humanism. La Pietà is one of the richest and best known collections of Della Robbia sculptures at the springtime of the renaissance. The creator of the sculpture is Giovanni Della Robbia; the first and epic of a dynasty of important pottery artists, decorators, potters, and terracotta workers. Della Robbia developed a unique pottery glaze that made his creations much more durable in the outdoors and therefore much suitable for use on the exterior of buildings. This was an extraordinarily formal and refined technique that immediately met with great success, so much so that the Della Robbia family’s work flourished for over one hundred years. It uniquely combines archaeometric and stylistic time-related information about the renaissance age in Western Civilization. In its context, La Pietà was created in the 15th century, the renaissance age , when there was a surge in artistic, literary, and scientific activity , especially in Florence, the third largest city in Europe, an independent republic where the Italian Renaissance began, and a banking and commercial capital after London and Constantinople. The renaissance era when this sculptured was created was also marked by few major events such as: religious problems in church, Erasmus publishing Greek edition of the New Treatment ...
Wayside Madonna is an oil painting on canvas by Edith Catlin Phelps. It was painted around 1939. Painted in southern California, it is a genre painting that is part of the regionalism movement but also has a religious subject. This painting is currently part of the permanent collection at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California. Phelps's oil painting Wayside Madonna ultimately focuses on the lady in the foreground, providing a narrative about southern California culture, and places an emphasis on the need for a more American focus and style of painting that does not rely so heavily on European art.
Barna di Siena’s Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine exhibits a highly dramatic style that was not seen in his mentor nor in his fellow student Lippo Memmi’s work. The symmetric composition consists of two main figures, Saint Catherine and the adult Jesus. In the painting, Jesus is seen placing a ring on Saint Catherine’s finger and taking her as his spiritual bride. Both figures appear to be very light and frail and the draperies they wear do not show the human f...
Jacopo del Sellaio’s Virgin, Child, and St. John is a characteristically iconographic tempera panel painting of Madonna, the Christ Child, and the infant St. John from the early renaissance, dating to the early 1480s. Sellaio was a Florentine painter under the apprenticeship of Sandro Botticelli, which reflects through his style and symbolism in the painting. In this work, he depicts a classically devotional scene filled with biblical symbolism. Sellaio’s Virgin, Child, and St. John expresses Mary’s loving role as Christ’s mother, the protective power and warmth of her maternal bond, and the significance of the birth of Christ.
By most accounts, the year 1500 was in the midst of the height of the Italian Renaissance. In that year, Flemmish artist Jean Hey, known as the “Master of Moulins,” painted “The Annunciation” to adorn a section of an alter piece for his royal French patrons. The painting tells the story of the angel Gabriel’s visit to the Virgin Mary to deliver the news that she will give birth to the son of God. As the story goes, Mary, an unwed woman, was initially terrified about the prospects of pregnancy, but eventually accepts her fate as God’s servant. “The Annunciation” is an oil painting on a modest canvas, three feet tall and half as wide. The setting of the painting is a study, Mary sitting at a desk in the bottom right hand corner reading, and the angel Gabriel behind her holding a golden scepter, perhaps floating and slightly off the canvas’s center to the left. Both figures are making distinct hand gestures, and a single white dove, in a glowing sphere of gold, floats directly above Mary’s head. The rest of the study is artistic but uncluttered: a tiled floor, a bed with red sheets, and Italian-style architecture. “The Annunciation” was painted at a momentous time, at what is now considered the end of the Early Renaissance (the majority of the 15th Century) and the beginning of the High Renaissance (roughly, 1495 – 1520). Because of its appropriate placement in the Renaissance’s timeline and its distinctly High Renaissance characteristics, Jean Hey’s “Annunciation” represents the culmination of the transition from the trial-and-error process of the Early Renaissance, to the technical perfection that embodied the High Renaissance. Specifically, “Annunciation” demonstrates technical advancements in the portrayal of the huma...
The depiction of Madonna and Christ is among the most ancient and common in Christian iconography and has an extensive number of variations because apart from its symbolic religious functions, it allows one to interpret the link between mother and child in many aspects. (8)
“The Met’s very own Mona Lisa” (Tomkins 9). That is what Duccio di Buoninsegna’s Madonna and Child painting is known as today. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art bought the Madonna and Child for forty-five to fifty million dollars” (Tomkins 1). However, the painting was not always in public hands; in fact, the Met purchased the last known work of Duccio in private hands. Originally, the painting was held in the private hands of Adolphe Stoclet and his wife. When the couple died, their house and their collection went to their son, Jacques who held onto the painting, and passed it down to his daughters who lent it to an exhibition in Siena of Duccio and his school. The painting was eventually withdrawn from the exhibition and sold (Tomkins 2). Madonna and Child painting dated 1300 and was painted by Duccio di Buoninsegna a Sienese painter, who is considered the founder of modern Italian painting. I chose to research this painting because the subject matter of religious imagery and symbols interests me. Also because when I looked at the painting the emotion on the Madonna’s face almost jumped out at me. It is as if, she is looking at her newborn child with this deep sadness, which almost makes you think that the painting is foreshadowing the death of Jesus Christ. In addition, the burns of the side of the frame peaked my interest, as to why they were there. Art critics were also interested in this work they even consider Madonna and Child one of Duccio’s perfect works, and it said to be worth all the other paintings exhibited under the name of Duccio (Christiansen 14). The Madonna and Child painting’s iconography, imagery, emotional appeal to the viewers, and meaning all make this painting still a great work of art today.
Pepsi and Sears both wanted to pull advertisement support from MTV if they continued to show the video. One of the reasons for this was the controversial religious content and both companies are family oriented which they thought may have blemished their image. In the opening scenes of the video you see Madonna witness a crime and a black man coming to help the woman just in time when the cops get there. This man is arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is totally innocent and in fact was trying to help the woman. So Madonna goes to the church where she prays to the black Jesus, which also looks like the hero from earlier. Jesus was an innocent and sin free person wrongly accused of crimes he did not commit. This is the connection that Madonna was trying to establish with the black Jesus.
One of Piero della Francesca’s well known paintings known as, Madonna and Child with Two Angels (Senigallia Madonna), is a piece that caught my eye while browsing The Metropolitan Museum of Art located on the Upper East side of Manhattan. This piece, created circa 1478 was done in Sansepolcro, Italy and was executed with oil paint on wood sized at 24 in. x 21 1/16 in.. Piero della Francesca’s biblical portrait of the Virgin, Christ, and angels is a central icon in the Catholic church specifically of the Renaissance (rebirth) in Italy. Throughout this piece, there is an underlying theme of the Virgin Mary’s son, Jesus Christ as he is intimately represented. It is an iconic scene that has been depicted by many different artists of the Renaissance but the way that Piero della Francesca represents his iconic piece differs in that it is more than a portrait, it is a scene of the Virgin Mary and her child being blessed.
Madonna is a controversial legend whose attitudes and opinions on sexuality have forced the public to take notice and change the image of females in society. Madonna believed women’s sexuality was a natural aspect of life; therefore, she dared to challenge the rules and definitions of femininity and sought to expand the meaning of it. In a male dominated world, she wanted to focus on the importance of women and let them have a voice of their own. Madonna shattered all the myths on traditional beauty standards and made her statement on sexuality and feminism, which changed how society viewed the standards of beauty. She impacted female power by encouraging sex- positivity into her music and her style. It is mainly because of Madonna that ordinary women, and women in modern entertainment have more choices and freedom which continues to influence further generations.
As I walked into the first gallery, I saw a wood sculpture that stood in the center of the room. This carving depicted “the crucified Christ, flanked by the Virgin Mary and St. John the Evangelist with Angels holding instruments of the Passion”. It was painted oak and very appealing to the eye. It stood approximately 15 feet in the air. The origin of this sculpture is unknown, but it was found in a Belgium church. This kind of sculpture usually stood at the entrance or at the center of the alter in the church facing the congregation. This image of the suffering Christ relates to the Christian ideas of suffering and Christ’s salvation of all mankind.
Ziegler, Joanna E. “Michelangelo and the Medieval Pietà: The Sculpture of Devotion or the Art
Firstly, what does the Madonna/Whore complex even mean? According to Gottschall, it is defined as how “men and/or society divide women into two binary types: virgins and whores.
Madonna’s reputation, however, provides little evidence to suggest any redeeming diva qualities or musical talent. Specifically, her voice is ‘often criticised as being the weakest aspect of her performances’ (Moohan, E,. 2008, p.163) and she upholds her status as a diva due to the ‘notion of her as a powerful and controversial figure’ (Nick Jones, 2008, p. 171) and not her artistic pieces. Madonna’s commanding and creative influence as an entrepreneur enables her to captivate and maintain her position. √ Good. I’m enjoying your discussion Ole.
Master of the Virgin inter Virgines. The Entombment of Christ. 1490. St. Louis Art Museum