The Forum (Undercroft)
9:30-10:30a
The Veneration of Mary in Art, with Jeanine Hough (Dec 3-17)
Beginning with the Annunciation and Nativity scenes of early Christian art, we will follow Mary through her veneration as “Queen of Heaven” in the Medieval period and her glorious Ascension in the Renaissance and Baroque period
I like to complain that there’s way more than I could talk about the this and I’m serious so all right so I’m going to start with a flash of the noton cathedrals obviously you know that our lady this these are named in honor of
Her and I want to give just a quick look at the facade the the West entrances of them um so that you’ll recognize them and then as I go back through some subject matter I’m going to talk about some of the sculptural programs of her on them right so this isn’t foring
God well there you go what’s that all about just glad you’re in the room I understand not sure I say same listen to you but then technology he’s getting tiing while I think that works okay thank you okay there you go uh there there I’m going to get to rim
But this is the first church uh that is still standing that was named noton and it is one of the most peculiar looking Churches it doesn’t really follow the Romanesque pattern of churches it’s certainly not Gothic um the typical pattern would be the to have the towers
Over the right and left portals um the sculptural program is different and and it’s just very unusual but it’s the first one the oldest one still standing with her name um there were some earlier ones that I’ll go into later the sculptural program is the story of
Mary’s life and also the um the association of Adam and Eve with Christ and Mary and of course Christ came to save us from the sins of Adam and Mary from the um misbehaving of Eve and so she’s considered the new Mary and Christ the new Adam we’ve seen the skull of
Adam at various scenes and the and of Christ particularly the resurrection okay so you are familiar with see this you’re familiar with not Paris this is in my opinion the most perfect of all the gothic Cathedrals it is symmetrical it’s quiet it’s just Exquisite and it you know the French
Revolution tried to destroy it but they managed not to and then of course our fire in 2019 I like this view because it shows one of the important features which is the very short Transit and of course here this is on the IL de and here is
The sand so you can’t go much further and sometimes the transcept are much wider this is a current photograph from the summer of the Reconstruction and I just heard today on the news coming over that the rooster is back on top and that they have a sprinkler system in it now I
Missed um as a fire prevention so it’s supposed to be ready for the Olympics yay it’s a miracle I mean the whole thing is better uh this is short noton short our lady of of chart sometimes it’s called it was earlier started earlier than notra it started 1145 Notre
1150 and in it had a massive fire in 1194 the fire destroyed everything but the West front and the and one window was managed to be saved and I’m going to show you the window and this was in medieval thinking the work of the Virgin because she wanted a new
Church here’s a side view you can see that is rammed into the city we don’t have that beautiful um walk towards the cathedral like you do in um Paris but this age of Gothic architecture brought in all kinds of new um architectural features and also engineering features
The buttress and the flying buttress the the increase in the in the uh gr vating the gr rib voling from AAR to sasar to se party and the th is just Rose in high Notre is 115 ft dark is 118 the N Aman is the
Tallest at 140 and rim at 124 so you just saw this in inre and and of course as it increases the window is increase the light increases and the same place from tow totally different the second one is from the 16th century which to me makes it I’m not gonna say
Anything this is the uh West Portal of the entrance of notam on the left is the Ascension of Christ and the siners of Christ with the four gospels symbols of the four gospels and on the right Mary the Mother of God and that is these are the kings and
Queens and Prophets of the Old Testament and the That was supposed to be in association with the uh French Kings being the spiritual Descendants the biblical things um Aman this is the tallest again it has different Towers you can see it gets more Lacy this sort of fret work this
Transparency where you see through it it looks more fragile more Lacy I don’t know if you like that or not but it’s fair and here is rim with matching Towers that’s sort of a way to identify we’re going to spend some time on this portal and the trumo from R and uh
Amen than we know about Mary this is my very quick review of the first week we know that she said yes this is the Anunciation we know that she was this is the first Madonna we know that she was a wonderful mother she loved her child and was protective of her child we know that she was a Jewish woman she was faithful to the church she was bra raised in the Jewish Church the
Temple synagogue and on the 8th day after his birth she took him to be circumcised here she is meeting with Simeon and Anna we’ll talk about that in a minute we know that she avoided the massacre of the in Innocents by leaving Bethlehem and going to Egypt this is the flight into
Egypt we know that she was concerned terribly over the loss of her son if you’ve ever ever had a missing child um this is where Jesus remained in the temple after Passover we know that she was a little bossy at the wedding of Kaa where she commanded that me to do something fix
The wineing help out um so all of these are typical mother things right so you know mother of god let’s focus on that concept for a little but we know that she grieved horribly at the crucifixion as any mother would and she was with the other Apostles um disciples Apostles when the
Holy Spirit came at Pentecost and this is our clue this is a fact this is our clue that she was part of the growing of the early Christian Church okay now I’m going into the Traditions the Legends the Apocrypha the many numerous writings on her that are not
Biblical uh We’ve looked at this this is the association this is a 980 uh sculpture gold it did have a a wood backing originally where Mary’s holding the the Apple studded with jewels and this is the association of Mary is the new eeve and we know that
She is was in many alter pieces many and represented as the Madonna many times particularly in the gothic and early Renaissance period even high Renaissance if you think about right well and she was considered an intercessor uh you pray to her and she was physically present and could receive and hear your prayer
And we know that in this sculpture of Michelangelo there was attempt to convey to us her Perpetual virginity showing her as a young woman holding an older man okay this is this is today the death of Mary called The Door Mission the Assumption of the Virgin the crowning of
The Virgin as Queen of Heaven and the Sacra con a dorissa okay Nancy you can help me out at any point this but sure um so this is probably the earliest story of the myth or the legend of Mary the continuation um this uh the D mission in
Uh it really the earliest writing was from St arenus and he died in Quinny 20 so somewhere in the early early 3r century and it was um the account of John after the after Pentecost and of course Mary was living with John John went to Ephesus to preach and apparently
Mary died there it says that Mary died 11 years after the death of Christ which would make her depending on how old you believe she was at the death of Christ this would make her about 40 44 4 to 48 years old and um in this Legend This the angel Gabriel comes to
Mary and he tells her that she her death will come in three days and in three days he comes back on a cloud and he says to her where are you going and she removes her girdle and says receive this my friend and she disappears so the girl you know in Roman
Times was a leather band worn a sign of power or authority or to hold some kind of knife or whatever it also if it’s it it it if it was sackcloth it could be a sign of mourning or sorrow or if it was linen and probably her case it was a a
Wrap that was configured as part of a garment or a tunic so um that is that is one of the Legends and this is from the MAA alterpiece I’ll show you where it is it’s right here and you know this whole alter piece remember we looked at it si
Cathedral Museum now and it’s all about the story Mary and her life uh Old Testament prophets so an early um I want to also mention that dorm Mission means in East it really started as a feast in the Eastern Church in the sixth century and and uh matriculated to
The west and the seventh and dorm Mission really means to fall asleep and it was believed in the correct me if I’m wrong Nancy it was believed that she fell asleep without pain or suffering and was buried and after that she was assumed into heaven so we’re going to
Look at the death and the Assumption um and there are some variations so we’ll get to those but this is one of the earlier pieces and I want you to notice that she’s surrounded by the Apostles of there apparently still 12 of them living and or and and
This is Christ holding her and she is received or taken assumed into heaven as a child and this her soul is represented as a child a baby or a really young infant so um that’s who you will see in almost every every representation of the the dorm miss you will always see Christ
Holding her or usually he’ll see it so keep an eye this this is one of the early beautiful ones and then they became very popular on the cathedrals on the notr cathedrals would show her dorm Mission and also her a something and this one is from the Royal the Royal wh
Of the Virgin at noton Paris and um she is hell as she’s being lowered into her tomb by two angels and she’s surrounded by the apostles and this is from the uh Royal portal of the virgin in chart you see the dorm mission on the lower left side
And the Assumption on the right lower side and at the top she is being crowned Heaven this one I love from straw for it’s more active we see the stiffness of the um the candy the stiffness of the Baroque and Gothic not Baro Romanesque and Gothic sculptures where they’re
Stiff and like a column most of them even though they’re carved in the round but this one they’re just like leaning out from under the arch and they have different expressions and particularly of breath and this is um Christ and this is John this of course who do you think
That is she’s always in our scene as grieving and expressive and dramatic Mary mag Mary this J again have to bring him up because he’s so significant in the path of Art through the sophistication of it through the developments in painting you can see first of all here there there is some Byzantine
Hierarchial um detail here Christ as larger than the other figures a little out of proportion but look at the perspective here this is new crado this is from the um same church the essante which is All Saints in Florence that the Madonna the big Madonna that you saw
Last week was from and it was painted in the same year 1310 this is four years after he finished the Arena Chapel um but this is this is um interesting there are lots of kind of fun details in this um St Andrew is sprinkling holy water on
Her we have another one here holding the incense sensor sprinkling it look at this one this figure with the thumbs in the pants these two are conversing this one has a mouth open like she or he is sing almost singing or speaking it just has a life that the others have seemed
More Frozen it has a little more personality I’ll call it um and this is um Temperon panel uh instead of Fresco what is the the busyness in the background just more more attendance heads okay yeah just his way of showing perspective like there was a crowd and
I’m sorry who’s holding Mary in this painting right here no who’s holding Mary oh here yeah I think that’s probably St Peter and this is probably John okay A lot of times is in red and Jesus it’s an old Jesus went with the soul of n yes yeah
I love this one and the reason that I like it so much is because of her blue shoud or her boo mantle and in most of them well the sculpt on ones were painted initially if you all didn’t know that arini paints still exists but the cathedrals were all painted in in the
Gothic period and uh but this is just so colorful now here is John in this one this would be Peter and and um you know Mary and then Christ again the child surrounded by Angels these with these blue in honor I guess of my blue blue angels blue Gates
But really really a special pece but no leg huh no leg okay okay Gabriel always has her legs okay we’re going to stretch out here um so there is another legend about her death it’s Western not Easter so uh you know everybody knows about doubting Thomas right well Thomas was preaching
In India when she died and he heard about her death and he came back to Jerusalem Mary had requested their accounts of this in the Apocrypha that she’ be buried in Gethsemane and so he came back and at and gathered the apostles and wanted to to see her tomb and and insisted that
They opened it and of course when they opened it it was empty so in the course of all of this Peter Peter Christus who is a Flemish painter he this is like a con a conglomeration of a lot of story in this one so this is St Peter already in his
Pap Garb um this would be Thomas and here is Mary uh reclining however when he comes and sees the empty gray she sends an angel with her girdle to him to prove that she has been assumed and she is in heaven and this is her soul going to heaven so it is
Multiple scenes multiple stories in this one painting but it’s it’s the western side of the where she was buried and um St Thomas there’s a little finger in the front I don’t know okay I did I did look this up and I didn’t I couldn’t get any more analysis
On it than I’ve told you and this is Rim Brand’s Exquisite drop point etching of her death so I have something to show you I’m going to pass the Apocrypha around this is the New Testament there’s an Old Testament one it’s 800 Pages very tiny Grint if you haven’t seen it you can
Look at it look through it and um this is a icon that I own uh per D misstion and I’ll pass it around and be if you’ll hold it by the frame yeah that’s beautiful Jesus again holding her soul yes that the bottom it it’s said in in
Legend that she died in the fall and this was actually done I bought it in to there used to be a museum of Christian art there and um it was done by a woman she wasn’t there uh that would had studied in Russia and she was a real
Iconic icon painter and there are definite restrictions on what you can do and what you cannot do as you knows um but it said that in legend that she died in the fall so you see in this the fall leads in the in the bottom at her T and
Then of course that’s Christ holding her as a child her soul is she goes into heaven so uh we’re moving to the Assumption which is in this I the Assumption has been uh well let me go back to sinlessness um in it was in the by the 4th Century it was
Believed that Mary was sinless and there was a debate over whether this was original sin or personal sin and in the fifth century St Augustine wrote that she was freed from personal sin and by the 10th Century by the year 1000 she would the Catholic Church decided that
She was sinless period so uh that is that is why she was able to be assumed in the heaven it begs the question of whether we all get assumed into heaven right isn’t that kind of what for I don’t know anyway it’s fun to think about so here’s some of the um the
Different um dogas from the popes at different periods that are um confirming her assumption Pope the ninth Pope this was in uh 1854 and that was really the turning point for this becoming a do of the Catholic Church so the Mary and dogmas are he is the mother of God therefore the Immaculate
Conception per Immaculate Conception Perpetual virginity and the Assumption the Queen of Heaven which I’m going to show you later is not one of the dogmas so the Assumption uh I want to talk about just for a second the Council of Trent and protestantism protestantism was probably about the greatest thing that ever
Happened to the Catholic church and also to our because it threatened the church uh the church was already losing because of indulgences various crimes against the church the behaviors of the popes um various various doctrines you know that you had to go to the pope to um hear
Your prayers to be cleansed of sin you had to confess all of that was people were were becoming turning against that so the Protestant Faith re inspired the Catholic Church to make some reforms and this was done at the Council of Trent in 1545 and the Council of Trent um you
Supposedly they got rid of indulgence as they straighten out some of the violations and and they also restricted in so Tred to restrict what artists could do like how far can you go into Legend that’s not actually documented in the Bible and of course artists paid no attention to this but
The other side of it was they wanted these elaborate dramatic gorgeous painting stun to bring the faithful back to the church and to bring the UN to uh it’s cause to bring the faithful back and to cause the unfaithful to go to their knees and so I’m going to start with these
Assumption paintings and they’re all done in the after the Council of Trent and most in the Baro period and the Baro period started about 1600 it followed the mannerist period which is really kind of where um El Greco is and they um but you know there was the high
Renaissance then the mannerism and then the Baro but he borders a a lot of Gro in terms of color and in terms of also um just the drama so we start to see the Assumption and these are powerful paintings they’re extremely large they’re most of the time on altars and
Or in chapels and they’re they Mary has been assumed into heaven usually the apostles are watching they they are here just stunned that she’s not in the Tomb some are looking at the tomb some are looking at her and one of the things that you know I guess we need to Define
Is Ascension and assumption Ascension is what Christ did Christ ascended into heaven and that is by his own divine power or or a being is being the Son of God Mary was assumed and she needed help she she was taken by for the most part in paintings Angels um there are some
Stories where she um is is lifted in a cloud so you’ll see different versions she is here still in her Maran blue and I might mention mariology the word this started after the Council of Ephesus and it was um in 431 when it was called mariology it was the
Prayers to Mary and I have here they are two rosaries for to pass around I’m sure probably a lot of you have rosaries I had this little catholic period of four years I was never confirmed that I was painting female saints and I got so into all of this um but they’re very
Beautiful and they’re so ways you pray and I really don’t remember it I did it a little bit but um you can look at them but the rosary uh there were prayer ropes that the desert fathers used that were noted and then uh there was a legend that Mary came in an apparition
With the rosary to a Dominican mom this would have been in the the early uh I guess early Christian period early medieval period and that that was when the rosary became more popular and it just grew with the growth of Mary and the the belief in her as an
Intercessor and uh that you prayed with the rosary and your prayers went straight to Mary I have a a small PR given to me by some former Roman Catholics and everywhere in it is it’s all the Mary yeah all yeah it’s fascinating the history of the church this so let’s run through these
Um Baro Pains of the Assumption this is Tiss and I want to point out that in the Baro period and particularly in Venice there the in Florence and Rome the there was always the argument over what’s more important line or um color Michelangelo believed color Da Vinci believe line and
In the in the Venice color rains so keep your eye on the Venetian paintings as we go and also in the Queen of Heaven and in the sacan bazan of the the Venetian paintings and this glorious use of color so here she is she’s surrounded by Angels but she’s on clouds
On our way to Jesus let me show you two Ruben Reuben I’m gonna use the word flamboyant there’s no other word and his he he is always just over the top with expression with uh uh movement in the figures just drama and I want to point out that we start to see
Peter in paple colors um in the dark blue bluish purple and in the gold and um all of these other figures I guess that is John and that’s probably Mary Magdalene and other Apostles but she is just in a swoon going up into heaven very magul anywhere there because
If he’s really really right there well she she’s usually in red Us in red both very white even she’s Mary appears to be a blonde lady in there she’s head yeah I think your head would roll back if you were saved dotting oh I I went to mention
This is in our naille gallery and it’s small 46 yeah 48 in I I call that small and this is uh done for the Church of our Cathedral of our Lady which is s in Andor and it is enormous 16 you you can see the similarities he’s inspired by the first
One look at the composition so somebody saw the first one in commission the second one don’t you think this is my favorite it’s simple it’s just gorgeous this Mario the Spanish painter brot period he was a temporary of of Bas um which I’m sure all of you know
But I think this is just gorgeous it’s interesting that Mary has shown Yan again and again this is that whole Perpetual virginity uh thread going through remember we were seeing her for a while as a nun remember an older woman covered and also in the very early um announcing of
Her death where Gabriel comes she’s an older woman but then in the Assumption She’s Fresh this is Mary is really an through for all fall here if you see this close up it is a ceiling painting and it’s huge you know 35 ft in width 3539 these were very popular in the
Baroque and Roca Co period Roca Co following the Baro and this um is surrounded by strange figures and a lot of them are new which I don’t know that I guess Heaven There it doesn’t matter if you’re dressed right I don’t know but anyway that’s one of the um
More dramatic ways of showing her and there many churches that have the Assumption of Mary as a ceiling Breco and there many churches dedicated to the Feast of the Assumption okay Queen of Heaven the coronation the feast day is August 22nd this was the latest of the three
The dorm Mission the Assumption and the Queen of Heaven to become popular and this really wasn’t popular although there were occasional um images of it until the AG Gothic period this is a very early icon from uh St Mary major this is uh Santa Maria madori one of the oldest churches in
Rome a Christian churches and it’s one of the ones that has this gorgeous whole cycle of the early Christian Church um in Mosaic and this was she was considered the protectress of Rome and the the icon was repainted in the um Gothic period so the additions of the
Cross the I guess that’s the Star of David maybe and the crowns you know the elaboration in there is gothic but um as far as being a protect protectress that’s hard for me to say she is um that’s an early Peete an early ion so the Queen of Heaven There is
There a few early associations of crowns we know the history of the crown you know the Laurel Crown from the Greek um games Olympic games that was the crown of Victory and there was also the crown of of course of royalty and uh Gregory donated this this Golden Crown to one of
The um images in St peters’s in the 8th century and then the this real spread of it was in the 13th century and Through The Counter Reformation one of the uh there three Biblical verses that one is in the song of songs one of in Psalms and one in
Revelation which I will get to in a few minutes that associate her with being the Queen of Heaven it’s a it’s a Association it’s not a little uh little leing so this is a very interesting piece we have hardly any Christian art that is thank you everybody see this um gorgeous that was
Done in England and England was Catholic of course until the reformation and um Henry VII and uh to see a a religious pieace it’s just very unusual we we just don’t see them they’re all from Spain and Italy and G uh Germany and other places so this is U Mary
Reining and the crown is being lowered from Heaven um and it has the the features are very unusual if you see them close up they’re very general they almost child like the placement of the eyes the nose but this is from an illumination from a manuscript and it
It’s um just a very special piece very very early for this also and to come out of England so the uh let’s look at the one window this survived the fire of chra in chra of 1190 and it was not um in its it it was damaged but it was able to be
Reused and here you see Mary holding crun and the crown on her head and the um Dove of the Holy Spirit above her um and of course shark has what 160 stain lless windows and they’re all amazing and blue being the dominant color for
Mary so um I have a detail of this and in the early 1900s it was uh had to be reconstructed I I’m not sure there was some damage or some of the leting and her face used to be upright and when they re refurbished it or or restored it it had became a
Slight tilt so it’s very unusual but um she’s definitely looking at us and this is a period where painting was done behind the glass and and um so you see some variations in color it’s not just clear glass everywhere so uh if we we’re going to
Look at Rim this is the last of the big Gothic cedral dat wise to be started and this is um the portal of the Mary the Mother of God so I want you to see uh these are this is called the trumo it’s a supposedly holds up the
Lentil which you know it will be hard to do hold up all this it actually rests on various pillar peers um so we’re going to look at this which is most unusual first and then we’ll go back to the tri and the figures on the sides are the
Ancestors of Mary and on the other side uh King solman Queen of Sheba and believe it or not King Herod and the three Magi so so it’s it’s an interesting uh selection of characters it’s a little more detail here this is limestone it has a yellowish cast um in
This Photograph it’s not quite that yellow um but look at the sculpture on top and this is completely terrible color it’s not silver and but it’s what I can get so this is called the marriage of Christ and the church the church Being Mary and he is seen here crowning her surrounded
By angels and this is again the growth of this concept of Mary being such a part of the church and the establishment of the early church and this tradition of her being an intercessor and um the the magnification of her importance this is not Dogma Queen of
Heaven this is the trumo you can see that she’s holding the Christ child he is not looking at us she is and she was holding initially a palm granite Palm granate is the symbol of resurrection and eternal life in the Christian tradition just refreshing you we saw
This early on the two figures on the right are the visitation this is the church at spron um with Mary and Elizabeth two on the left are the enunciation with three different sculptures on this as you can tell just a reminder of where that is so going back to
Aman this is the trumo there and you see that Mary is looking us so is Christ Christ is holding the orb here or being a symbol of the earth he is king of all the Earth and she is stopping on evil so this goes back to Eve evil is maybe a
Serpent but it has a human head you know the the uh romanist churches were for the most part named after saints St Step St Lazar St Pierre St Mark the list went on and or of of the town they were in like the Durham Cathedral and the usual subject matter
Was the most popular was the last judgment so in the in the Romanesque period when you approached a beautiful Romanesque Church like in oton the the ponum at the top of the main portal was the last judgment and there were all these figures being cast into hell and
Then we turn around in the gothic period and we see all of this beautiful uplifting sculpture of Mary and the story of her life and the association with her intercessory abilities I guess should call it her uh the prayers to her the importance of her she became extremely
Important after the gothic period and particularly after the Council of TR this is an early Gothic uh well I guess it would be early 14th century kind of light gothy but it falls in that period of uh of Ro of raut flamboyant style it’s called the courtly style it’s the style
Of the period of s Chappelle and I’m sure you’re familiar with s Chappelle where everything was um allow elaborate and the figures of the sculptural figures always had this contraposto and this shift and this elegant move through them however this figure gets a lot of criticism this is exactly my height and
She’s way up on a pedestal in notam the virgin of Paris she’s called but if you look at her carefully there’s no way her legs support the sway of her body and the weight of the child so it gets a lot of criticism in the art World although
It’s beautiful and let me show you a detail of her face look at this and he’s holding an orb and she’s holding the scepter of the uh French monarchy clean up another beautiful um temp aing the crowning of Mary Mary is you know the crowning took place in heaven after the
Assumption and Mary is no longer in blue in this particular one with Christ crowning her surrounded by Apostles and Angels this is an interesting piece so we know the Magnificat the song of Mary uh started with her um how am I worthy when when she to to have the Son of God
What I can’t remember the quote exactly when she was visiting Elizabeth and she felt John the Baptist jump in Elizabeth’s wom and this is belli we all love belli right and he this is this round shape is called a condo in art and she’s being frowned here which is
Unusual but it’s showing her riding The Magnificat with Christ guing her her hand so his left hand is guiding her and his right hand has the Palm grin with the little tiny seeds I don’t know if you all can see those but um it’s a really beautiful piece there
Are three copies of this um one is in the Lou one in thei and the other one is in the Morgan library and Museum in New York is overwhelming the uh I guess translation of it so Mary’s being assumed clouds and angels and she’s in blue again he’s
Again young this is Christ holding the crown with God the father and here is the dove of the holy spirit so if you look at the composition of this it’s an inverted TR oh yeah this was really unusual because the Renaissance the triangle the base
Was the heavy part and the top was the light part so if you draw an imaginary line around here and around here it’s a heart and she has her hand all so it’s just uh bascus knew what he was doing he was a serious Catholic he
Was in the order of San Santiago which was a a great honor in Spain and this is um just I think an acceptable piece of her at what point the Angels really become almost chees and just with the wings that nor I I think the the angels
As as traditional more looking more like people yeah in the gothic period that they became less important and the cloud became more important in the Baro you know the that assumption was more dramatic with Cloud because you see the LV the cloud so there’s one more Biblical
Quote that and a great son appeared in heaven a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and on her head around 12 stars and she was with child well if the this is very confusing and it’s one of those biblical passages that artists adopt
That possibly does not refer to Mary so here’s one of the beautiful stained glass windows this is from Australia Sydney and you see Mary standing on the moon with a crown of 12 stars and these would be this would of course be the apostles got the serpent under Faith standing on
Evil but this is not acceptable theology with Mary it is it is acceptable in Revelation but anyway had to clear this with Scott okay conans this is our last segment here of my talking about Mary and I could as I said I could go on for three years um this is this became
Popular o only in the Renaissance and after it was not it didn’t happen before and of course everything with Mary grew the focus on her the the what she could do what she participated in where she was and in the Renaissance she had conversations usually quiet ones in the
Renaissance with various Saints and sometimes with donors so here she is with uh St Lucy and one of the bishops from um Florence and St Francis and John the Baptist and John this is complete Renaissance if you think about the order of things the balance the
Symmetry this is I I would consider this middle early Renaissance early Renaissance being 14400 to maybe 1475 and this would kind of be smack in the middle and then of course it takes off with d Vinci D Vinci’s big three paintings um including the Madonna and the Annunciation and the Last Supper
Were 1498 so they were before 1500 1500 is really the boom of the high Renaissance where you start seeing more Michelangelo and and Rael and the bigger figures but Beno sorry V was one of the the famous middle early Renaissance artists and this this is quiet with John the Baptist
Pointing towards Mary and Jesus so just look at the composition and we’re going to go from there and uh St Lucy she was the patron sa of uh Venice and she was uh St Lucy and St Margaret and many other of the female saints were martyred because they
Refused to have sex with the Emperors or the the heads of the church at the time and they were tortured and she uh apparently her this is horrible her eyes were pulled out and she’s always shown holding a tray with two eyeballs and she
Is in a lot of the um Renaissance and go and G paintings and these Traditions about the Saints a lot of them come from the golden legend that was a a a medieval book written by actually a theologian it’s interesting that okay uh the Saria alter piece by
Bini bini was late early Renaissance and beginning High Renaissance this is 1505 that falls right into the category of the beginning of the 16 Chapel he was an incredible artist he lived to be really old he did this alter piece when he was 74 years old and I’m going to show you a
Lot of of it because it’s so beautiful so uh we have here St Peter notice that he is in his papal colors he is head of the head of the church the spiritual head of the church and this is St Jerome who was one of the early doctors of the
Church translated the Bible into Latin and he is the representative of the the um governmental uh or ecclesiastical side of the church here’s St Lucy again with her tray of anals and this is St castle with her wheel she was tortured on a wheel and and this Angel is playing music the
Reason the music in there is for harmony so Saka conversasion are meant to be silent conversations between more meditative more prayerful with who whoever is there and the Virgin and child so let’s look at some details this closer so back to Venice what did I say
About Venice and the color in the broad period you just see it red is red blue is blue yellow is yellow gold is gold you know the color is just gorgeous and um Venetian barug paintings and Renaissance and look at the Virgin and child so we’re used to seeing the Child Jesus as
A small adult right with more of an adult face so in the Renaissance and you start to see uh particularly High Renaissance you start to see um more of a baby look or a young sort of toddler um and here he is already blessing and Mary is looking down at
Whoever might be visiting her or trying to communicate with her if we go back to see this is I so she’s looking at whoever might be standing down in front of her making eye contact remember that she is an intercessor and look at the colar I just
So I’m going to go back one more time this this is the church this is all Trum play Old painting to look like the depth of another receding Arch behind the Virgin here it is in the church now sonaria more paintings added but you can
See the scale now this of these are 16 ft so the scale is huge if we look at what’s and my last one is tishan and again this is Venice and um it’s a little different in composition so you can see that our story is a Diagon the Virgin is holding
The child and looking with St Peter down at aaro neing here’s his family his brother and his children and wife and this is um a someone carrying the flag this is a symbol not only of The Boro family the the coat of arms but
Also the mief or one of the popes of the mede and this these columns are supposed to be the Gateway into heaven um symbolic in the pain but you see that that the baby Jesus is looking this way this is St Anthony and and St um Francis
Um he’s looking this way like a child just not paying much attention acting like a baby and she is looking down at uh theara who is pay who is praying to her through St Peter so it’s just an incredible piece and if we look at the top they’re two angels in this Dark
Cloud folding across and this is the for bodying of the what’s to come do you all know the Sorrows of Mary the um the first one is when she was in the temple took took Christ to the temple and got the warning from um Simeon that a sword would Pierce her
Soul and then there is the flight into Egypt the fear the running away from the massacre then the uh I think the next one is when Jesus disappears in the temple then there’s the uh condemnation and the the crucifixion the deposition and the burial all the Seven soras
Mary well I’m going to be the there we go guy