Repost: The Immaculate Conception in Christian Art

[197] The thought of Mary's sinlessness from the first moment of her earthly existence has caused Christian genius to picture her in a form which abstracts from her maternal relations and presents her simply as the highest ideal of virginal womanhood. If the image of the "Mother and Child" leaves upon us the impression of her sympathy, and awakens confidence in her maternal care, the chaste beauty of Mary's lightsome figure as the Immaculata amid the stars of heaven is calculated to lift up our hearts with admiration, and to elicit the desire that it might be given to us some day to live in the sweet companionship of her sublime virtue.

No school of artists has ever realized the beauty of this virginal concept so well as the Spanish painters of the sixteenth century; and among them Bartolomé Murillo stands as leader and prince. It is pleasant to think that his genius for painting sweet pictures of the Immaculata was developed by American [198] traders from Mexico and Peru, who bought the young painter's small canvases exhibited in the booths on the grand piazza of Sevilla. They knew that they could readily dispose of these pictures to the converts in the cities of the New World, and they felt that it would bring a blessing on their trade to spread the devotion to the Madonna. But back of this demand for pretty pictures of the Virgin Queen of Heaven there was another influence which formed the "Painter of the Conception" and the school to which he belonged. These Spanish artists of the sixteenth century lived in an atmosphere of inspiring traditions. Murillo's father, as well as Juan de Castillo, a relative and his earliest instructor, were contemporaries of the great Spanish saints. They could tell the youth of the wondrous things said and done by Peter of Alcantara, John of Avila, Teresa, John of God, Francis Borgia, Louis of Granada, Bartolomio of the Martyrs, and, loveliest of all, by the little Luigi, Count of Gonzaga. Luigi, the devout boy from Lombardy, was one of the comely pages that attended Princess Donna Maria at the Spanish Court; and those who had seen him in Madrid remembered the evening hours of May in the chapel, where he might be seen kneeling on the altar steps before the statue of the sweet Madonna. And the missionary Fathers who returned to Sevilla from the far-away land of Peru too could tell young Bartolomé of a maiden Saint, Maria Rosa of Lima, who had gone to heaven the very year of little Murillo's birth, all enamored of the Madonna, so that the Indians spoke of her as an angel of the Virgin Queen.

This breath of a sainted atmosphere throughout the Castilian domain seemed to act upon the temperament of the whole nation, and produced that delicate perception of Mary's beauty as the Immaculata, which not only characterized the art of painters like Murillo, but may be recognized also in the artistic and literary products generally of that age. They carry our vision into the region of mystic beauty, creating a unique halo which surrounds the figure of Mary and lends to it a character distinct from her dignity as the Queen of Mothers.

Murillo's picture of the "Immaculate Conception" is probably the most familiar and at the same time the most perfect presentation of the subject which we can imagine. He painted the same [199] theme on a large scale more than twenty times. The best copies, with slight variations in form, are in the museums at Madrid, Sevilla, and Paris. It is said that his daughter Francesca, who afterwards became a nun, served him as a model; but we know how the beauty of her mother had first captivated the artist's fancy whilst he painted the altar-piece in the church at Pilas.

Some writers have seen in Murillo's picture of the Immaculate Conception throning upon the crescent a suggestion of the triumph of Christian virtue over the Moorish power symbolized by the half moon. But it is clear that the leading motive of the picture is suggested by a passage in the Apocalypse of St. John.[1] The beloved disciple, wrapped in prophetic vision of the future Church of Christ, sees in the heavens the magnificent image of "a great sign"—of "a woman clothed round about with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." Simultaneously he describes a serpent, or rather a dragon lying in wait for the offspring of the woman that he might devour it. The whole scene is presented to St. John as if it had occurred before the creation of man, in the midst of the angels, who thereupon began to be divided in their allegiance to God. "And there was a great battle in heaven; Michael and his angels fought with the dragon . . . who seduceth the whole world." Then the holy seer hears a voice: "Now is come salvation and strength . . . and the power of Christ."[2]

Like all prophetic allusions of the Sacred Text to the Church of Christ, this vision finds a most ready application to our Blessed Lady. Hence the Immaculate Conception is represented in form of the Virgin modestly composed, her hands gracefully crossed upon her chaste bosom, the whole figure clad in a white robe, with the blue mantle suggesting "heavenly protection" lightly wrapped around her, and a golden flood of celestial brightness flowing down upon her. She is apparently supported by the crescent floating amidst the clouds, whilst her foot is set upon the head of the serpent which writhes on the earth beneath. All these notes are symbolical and point to the sinless conception of Mary, to her singular power over Satan and earthly concupiscence [200], and to the exalted position which she holds in consequence of these prerogatives among devout Christians. Mgr. Malon, Bishop of Bruges, has very elaborately explained the details of these elements to be found in most pictures of the Immaculate Conception.[3] He shows that true artistic sense forbids the introduction of any symbol that indicates the ordinary virtues which we honor in the saints. Hence there are not to be found in these pictures such emblems as the lily, or the crown (except the twelve stars), or the Holy Child.

The white robe indicates the immaculate purity of Mary's life. The blue mantle, which lightly floats about the figure, caught by the breezes of heaven, expresses her separation from earthly attachments; she was wrapt up, so to speak, in the azure mantle of heavenly contemplation, which bore her aloft under the gentle breath of Divine inspiration.

The twelve stars about her head denote her special dignity, which unites in itself all the gifts of the Prophets of the Old, and of the Apostles of the New Law. If the just, that is, the saints, are to shine like stars, she is to shine with a brilliancy surpassing them all, for she is the Queen of Saints, of Prophets, and of Apostles, who represent the combined perfection of the heavenly host. Murillo omits this halo of stars; but he does so without prejudice to the beauty of his subject, for the golden splendor of the light with which he surrounds our Blessed Lady would make the brightest star to pale away. Other painters, though they might, like C. Müller, match Murillo's Madonna in the sweetness of expression, fail in this power of suffusing a heavenly light about her fair form that makes her transfigured body float into the celestial realms on a rich translucent atmosphere.

Murillo also omits the image of the dragon which has served other artists to emphasize the contrast between the chaste sinlessness of the Immaculate Queen and the wiles of Satan, who was the cause of the first transgression. But here too Murillo is superior to the ordinary master. His Virgin Queen is born aloft by a throng of joyous angels, child-like figures that suggest the sinlessness [201] of early innocence. The only suggestion of contrast comes from the dark clouds that form the lower background of the picture, and thus supply the artistic element represented by the dragon without marring the happy atmosphere which the figure of the Immaculate, "all fair," inspires. For this reason Murillo's pictures have sometimes been called the "Ascension of the Virgin," to distinguish them alike from the image portrayed in the Apocalypse and from the "Assumption," in which latter the Eternal Father or Holy Trinity is frequently presented in order to express the act of receiving our Lady into heaven, whilst the symbols of the crescent and the serpent are omitted. No painter has ever so completely exhausted this difficult theme, preserving at the same time absolute simplicity of composition, as did Murillo, the devout lover of our Blessed Lady. There have been critics, like Cartier, who have found fault with the drawings of Murillo's figures, and others who have failed to realize the lofty concept which from the religious point of view the picture presents; but there is only one opinion regarding the marvellous [sic] effect of his coloring, which gives to his pictures of the Immaculata an almost supernatural character: the whole image seems as if it were melting away, so to speak, from the earthly to the region of the purely ideal and heavenly.

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Footnotes:

1. Ch. 12: 1.
2. Ibid.
3. Iconographie de l'Immaculèe Conception de las très Sainte Vièrge Marie, ou de la meilleure manière de rèpresenter ce mystère. Par Mgr. J. B. Malon. Bruxelles: Goemaere. 1856.

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Source: "The Immaculate Conception in Christian Art," American Ecclesiastical Review 27 (August 1902): 197–201.