MALDIEVAL ART

MADONNA

Artist Name : Raphael

Artwork Name : Madonna

Location : National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

The artwork show , Madonna, in Christian art, depiction of the Virgin Mary; the term is usually restricted to those representations that are devotional rather than narrative and that show her in a non historical context and emphasize later doctrinal or sentimental significance. The Madonna is accompanied most often by the infant Christ, but there are several important types that show her alone.

The theme of the Madonna and Child was rare in the first centuries of early Christian art 
(c3rd–6th century).  However, the establishment of Mary’s title of Theotokos (“Mother of God”) definitively affirmed the full deity of Christ. Thereafter, to emphasize this concept, an enthroned Madonna and Child were given a prominent place in monumental church decoration

Byzantine art developed a great number of Madonna types

•  All are illustrated on icons, and one or another type was usually pictured prominently on the eastern wall of Byzantine churches below the image of Christ; the location dramatized her role as mediator between Christ and the congregation. 

• The major types of the Madonna in Byzantine art are the nikopoia (“bringer of victory”), an extremely regal image of the Madonna and Child enthroned; the hodēgētria (“she who points the way”), showing a standing Virgin holding the Child on her left arm; and the blacherniotissa (from the Church of the Blachernes, which contains the icon that is its prototype), which emphasizes her role as intercessor, showing her alone in an Grant, or prayer posture, with the Child pictured in a medallion on her breast.

Madonna types are the Italian sacra conversation, depicting a formal grouping of saints around the Madonna and Child, and the northern themes of the Madonna of the rose garden, which symbolizes Mary’s virginity, and the seven sorrows of Mary, showing seven swords piercing the Virgin’s heart.

Three major Madonna types showing the Virgin alone have theological significance. As the

Madonna of mercy, which flourished in the 15th century, the Virgin spreads her mantle protectively over a group of the faithful.

In year  17th century emphasized her Immaculate Conception, or perpetual freedom from original sin, shows her as a young girl descending from the heavens, supported by a crescent moon and crowned by stars, and  did most religious art, the theme of the Madonna suffered a decline in the major arts after

The Representations of the Madonna and Child, however, continued to be important in popular art into the 20th century, most following 16th- and 17th-century models.



References 

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica , Madonna . Encyclopædia Britannica ;June 19, 2015

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Madonna-religious-art.

Christensen, Carol. "Examination and Treatment of Paintings by Raphael at the National Gallery of Art." Studies in the History of Art 17 (1986): 47–54. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_(art)