No, not THAT Madonna. The other one.
“It’s a time when the Catholic Church is in flux,” due to, among other things, the rise of humanism and the Counter-Reformation, says Virginia Treanor, associate curator at the museum.
“She becomes more approachable, in a way. Earlier on, the tendency was to portray her as a very regal figure,” Treanor says.
Instead of sitting around just looking holy, Mary started doing Mom Things like breastfeeding and saying “just wait until your Father gets home.” (Not really.)
Artists also started to emphasize Mary’s most human role: as a young mom raising, and eventually mourning, her son. She wasn’t only a saint; she was an accessible model for women of the time.
Though most mothers would find it impossible to be sinless and ever-virginal, they could reach for other characteristics Mary embodied.
“Being humble, being meek, being silent” were all desirable traits, Treanor says. “Her mouth is closed in all these images, she’s never speaking.
“Mary is the ultimate womanly example in the Christian faith,” Treanor adds. “She was really put forth as a model of all the characteristics that women were supposed to have.”
National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Ave. NW; Fri. through April 12, $10.
Elisabetta Sirani’s “Virgin and Child” (1663) shows the humanization of both Mary and Christ. “There are no halos, she’s dressed very simply, there are no indicators who these people are,” associate curator Virginia Treanor says. “The only indication is that she’s wearing her characteristic red and blue and the baby is holding this garland of flowers. He’s almost crowning her.”
Puccio Capanna’s “Madonna and Child with Annunciation and Female Saints” (circa 1330) straddles the line between the regal Queen of Heaven — one of Mary’s many titles — and the more human Mary that comes later. “She’s seated on a throne, her halo is very prominent, she’s very queenlike, very authoritative,” Treanor says. “It’s a glimpse into the transition that’s starting to happen. You have this iconic, formal, regal depiction, but I love the fact that the Christ child doesn’t look like a small man — he looks like a baby, and he’s acting like one. He’s getting antsy.”
Many of the works in the exhibit, such as Gerard David’s “The Annunciation” (circa 1490), show Mary reading. “She’s usually reading a book of hours [a prayer book], kind of anachronistically,” Treanor says. “But it communicates this idea that women of the time were seen as their children’s first educators, not only in terms of reading, but in terms of religious education.”
One of the more unusual works is Sofonisba Anguissola’s “Self-Portrait at the Easel” (1556). “It references St. Luke, who according to church tradition was the first to paint the Virgin and child,” Treanor says. “In this case, Anguissola is putting herself in the place of St. Luke. She’s also showing the viewer that she could paint history or religious subjects, which was not common for women of the time. It’s a very strong gaze she’s giving us, like, ‘Yeah, I can do this.’ ”