The iconography of Virgin Mary

Hello readers! Today's topic is the iconography of the Virgin Mary!

So here I'm just going to have a few examples of some of the paintings of Virgin Mary and will discuss some points on the iconography of her 

Some of Leonardo da Vinci's work:



Simone Martini


Dante Gabriel Rossetti 

Virgin Mary’s iconography

•            Encouraged aristocracy to fund churches, cathedrals, schools
•      Inspired a vigorous piety, consolation of prayer and devotion to her, practical support institutions funded in her name provided to the poor
•       Earliest reference is in St Paul’s letter, writes simply Jesus was made as woman, and never referred to her again. A very quiet and anonymous entrance into culture for a woman that generated great art and mythology as the mother of Jesus
•       Virgin Mary has been formed and animated for different reasons, for instance, title Mary, Queen of Heaven endures in contemporary prayer and ritual but the image lost much of its strength, and the fine detail of her and her identity continues to inspire people to contemplate what she is and how she functions for us. The contemporary function of Mary remains one of intersession between heaven and Earth, a mediator
•       Iconography grew for practical reasons – most of the faithful would have been illiterate so the bible narrative would not have been able to be read. Her images provide contemplation and prayer. She represents a complex accretion of ideas and hopes and values, but doesn’t explain why she continues to be so popular.
•       Freud - Responding to the notion of a pure and loving mother
•       Jung - Represents the feminine, has all qualities of the female, transferred to the social and family sphere, paragon of female virtue
•       Where is the masculine then? Mary lived and attained the status of myth which is that it’s a reflection of a people and their hopes and fears. She emerges as the human vessel in which the redemption of Christ is made possible.
•       Consequence is that personal salvation is now restricted in religion, however other religions revere her as the mother of one of the great prophets
•       Her divine motherhood, virginity, purity, the immaculate conception – born without the stain of original sin, assumption of her body and soul unto Heaven.
•       Gospel of Luke, seeks to verify the birth and early life of Jesus and pre-ordained. Begins with the Annunciation.
•       Icons – golden backgrounds. The tradition behind goes back to Bazantium. Evolved for paintings were to be placed in chapels, alters, etc, glorified the subjects and placed them in front of a golden background. The realism is not important but that the figure transcends the earthly realm, gives a valuable aura to the figure, makes it symbolic. Arrived in Italy and one of the earliest Italian painters, Chima Bue, Madonna, one of the earliest paintings in this style. Perspective is not managed but had anecdotal details. It became a dominant reason in Italian art – handles the space and configures it as something that can be understood in space. 
•       The Annunciation by Simone Martini, early Gothic painting, part of a central piece, shows the angel and Mary, and Mary is more important. The angel is still part of the gold, and she dominates it, and has a real face. She has emotion there, been reading, still has her book almost opened, perplexed at the huge burden that has been given her. At the beginning of the Gothic style, can see the shape and form of the bodies. The Mary is a person, natural and believable – she is defensive, almost hostile.
•       Italians state of Sienna under attack by Florence. Florentines wished to take it by force and had a greater force. The mayor prostrated (humble, lay down) in front of the Virgin Mary and begged him to protect the city. They won the battle the next day, and so the city dedicated Mary as the patron of their city.
•       Leonardo da Vinci, has been dabbled with since, for example, the wings extended. He has an obsession with flight, part of his early designs for what he will work on later with flight. Mary is more in the tradition of a pious and contemplative woman, accepting of the angels’ message.
•       Rossetti’s Annunciation, simple painting, Pre-Raphaelite committing to treating people in a more naturalistic way. The angel is very solid, holds a lily (symbolic of purity), casts a shadow. Notions of the fallen woman – Mary is at the one end of this spectrum. Cult of Mary has little basis in the Gospels as she figures little, so it comes from their own traditions and borrowed ideas from other faiths and cultures.
•       Anita Dawking, said Mary is used as an essence for the right behaviours for women and girls. Absorb archetypes in our being. She represents a field of expression and creation in which the search of sexual identity can be manifested.
•       Has an enduring power of an old love, embroidered in society.
•       Virgin Mary features little in the Bible. Where she is mentioned, she describes herself as 'ancilla', a servant in the Bible
•       Until Reformation, all of Europe was united by one faith, and veneration of Mary was an unbroken tradition.
•       As in Leda and the Swan, God and the human being meet together. One of things that connects the two is something elementary, so simple, that is how to understand the bridge the links the divine realm and the earthly realm – how can you cross that divide? This problem appears theologically and artistically – present in art. It appears, for example, in the question of what happens to Christ after the Resurrection – cult of ascension to Heaven. What happens to the Virgin Mary? The Bible doesn’t give an answer to that. Other writings, known as the Apocrypha, stories people tell for there is no real authority. Books relating to figures in the Bible not accepted into the Bible. The early Church had to decide which texts it considered proper and the ones it rejected. One book in it tells us more about the Virgin Mary that she went to live the last years of her life at Ephasis, one of the great cities of the Mediterranean. In the 19^th century, a local woman had visions that she was told where the Virgin Mary had died, and they excavated the ground and found the remains of an old house.
•       She was assumed (taken up), did she rise by herself (some kind of deity) or is she taken by God. This has been centuries of debate that eventually it was decided that she was taken up by God.
•       Ideal woman in Christianity always a problematic one – the chaste virgin and at the same time, the bearer of children.