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Italian Proto-Renaissance Painter

Summary of Giotto

Giotto is one of the most important artists in the development of Western art. Pre-empting by a century many of the preoccupations and concerns of the Italian High Renaissance , his paintings ushered in a new era in painting that brought together religious antiquity and the developing idea of Renaissance Humanism . Indeed, his influence on European art was such that many historians believe it was not matched until Michelangelo took over his mantle some two centuries on. Giotto is best known for the way he explored the possibilities of perspective and pictorial space, and in so doing, he brought a new sense of realism to his religious parables. His interest in humanism saw him explore the tension between biblical iconography and the everyday existence of lay worshippers; bringing them closer to God by making art more relevant to their lived experience. His figures were thus infused with an emotional quality not seen before in high art, while his architectural settings were rendered according to the optical laws of proportion and perspective.

Accomplishments

• Revered as one of the first of the great Italian masters, Giotto brought a new sense of humanity and style to the traditions of medieval art. Following his intervention, "flat" Christian paintings came to be seen by progressive painters as inanimate and lacking in human feeling.
• Giotto's "new realism" emphasized its humanity through his attention to fine detail. His figures were rendered, in three-dimensional space, through motions and gestures and on fine costume and furnishings details. Though they were devoted to Christ, his human figures form the centre of his narratives.
• Giotto was widely celebrated in his own lifetime. This was due largely to the famous Italian poet Dante who proclaimed him the most important Italian artist, placing him above even Cimabue (originally Giotto's master) who was till then considered the great genius of 14 th century Italian painting.
• Giotto was an admired architect. He worked in Florence as master builder for Opera del Duomo, erecting the first part of the Gothic (designed as much for decoration as function) Bell Tower which was duly named in his honor - Giotto's Bell Tower. The tower is widely considered to be the most beautiful campanile in Italy.

Important Art by Giotto

Isaac Blessing Jacob

Historians have grappled with the problem of exactly what Giotto painted while at Assisi, though there is general consensus that he was responsible for this and other important frescos. Isaac Blessing Jacob , one of Giotto's earliest extant works, forms part of a fresco cycle in the Upper Church of the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. Sitting along the top half of the church's walls, the frescoes portray narratives from the Old Testament that were key bases for beliefs of the Franciscan monastic order. Here, the elderly Isaac is shown blessing his younger son, Jacob, as Jacob offers him food while Isaac's wife, Rebekah, watches. This fresco reveals early versions of Giotto's technical innovations in painting: that of rendering believable space between human figures. Although Giotto creates an artificial scene by cutting away two of the walls, he also transforms the moment of Isaac blessing Jacob into an everyday event. Using axial perspective, a technique in which lines recede parallel to each other and into the distance, Giotto places the three figures here in an interior that has spatial depth; we can see, for instance, how the foot of the bed recedes. While artists had employed the technique of axial perspective since antiquity, Giotto combines it with numerous details of casual daily life to make the interior more approachable. A curtain hangs across the back of the room to evoke a private space, and the sheets over Isaac's feet are rumpled as if he has just sat up. Isaac, Jacob and Rebekah too seem more like actual human bodies. Not only do sheets and clothes drape over their forms to suggest human anatomy from shoulders to feet, but their faces have distinct contours. Isaac's face is angular and lined around his nose like the face of an older man, and Jacob's face has fuller cheeks with little suggestion of bone structure like that of a youth. In addition, Jacob's steady, concentrated gaze at Isaac complements Isaac's pensive, sideways gaze. Such humanist innovations brought a new psychological dimension to proceedings. Giotto's more realistic depiction of human figures and their spatial relations had a marked influence on later artists, including the early 15 th- century Fra Angelico and Masaccio. When painting The Expulsion of Adam and Eve in his fresco cycle for the Brancacci Chapel (c. 1425, S. Maria del Carmine, Florence), Masaccio echoed Giotto's perspectival rendering of architectural elements and evocation of emotional response (Adam and Eve bend over awkwardly with shame and grief as they walk past an arch receding into the distance). Giotto's fresco thus highlights shifts in European painting techniques that would become key for Renaissance artists and subsequent generations.

Egg tempera fresco - Basilica of St Francis, Assisi

Nineteen feet high, and forming part of a choir screen, this depiction of the Crucifixion reveals Giotto's rethinking of established modes of religious representation. Earlier Byzantine artists had usually depicted the Crucifixion with a "Triumphant Christ" who stands erect and seems to look proudly out from the cross. Here, however, Giotto focuses on the pathos of the scene and thus encourages the viewer to empathize with Christ's suffering. Unusually detailed anatomical depiction of Christ's body suggests how it hangs heavily from the cross, as might an actual human body. The muscles in Christ's arms appear painfully stretched because of their sharp delineation while his stomach sags uncomfortably towards his feet. His head bows to imbue the scene with the melancholy of emotional suffering. Worshippers are invited to participate in this scene - which depicts the Virgin and St. John at the end of each arm looking inward at Christ's suffering. Since Giotto adjusted his Crucifixion to the viewers' point of view (they sit or stand underneath the suspended crucifix) the proportions of Christ's body bring added emotional gravitas when seen from below. This humanistic depiction of Christ on the cross became the preferred mode of representing the Crucifixion for later artists. For instance, with his Holy Trinity (c. 1425-27) fresco inside S. Maria Novella in Florence, Masaccio echoes Giotto's depiction of the realistic suffering and bodily weight of Christ. Christ's body again hangs heavily from distended muscular arms, and the invitation to worshipper participation has become even more overt as a worshipper in the painting looks directly out to our space.

Tempera and gold on wood panel - Church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence

Celebration of Christmas at Greccio

This work, also located in the Upper Church at Assisi, uses perspective to depict a religious space normally inaccessible to lay worshippers. A scene from Giotto's fresco cycle narrating the life of St Francis, this painting displays the saint creating the first Nativity scene, now familiar in the celebration of Christmas across the Christian world; we see St. Francis laying Christ in a manger. Giotto shows St. Francis clearly behind the choir screen that usually divided the church into space for lay worshippers and space for religious figures, such as the Franciscan monks. Not only are the white panels of the choir screen visible but Giotto further emphasizes the unusual setting through his use of perspective to create a definable space in front of the viewer. We can see how the floor is tipped upward, the pulpit recedes away from us, and the structure at the left is shown at a raking diagonal. In addition, there is space behind the choir screen since women step across its threshold and the crucifix leans backwards at a reclining angle. Beyond its artistic innovations, as the art historian Jacqueline E. Jung has observed, Giotto's fresco offers unusual insight into the complexity of social interactions within a medieval church. To the right and left of St. Francis, well-dressed (and so wealthy) individuals in flowing and colorful robes surround four Franciscan monks in brown robes. Since the monks stand behind the well-dressed individuals with their mouths open, the scene appears to offer lay worshippers instruction in the religious event before them; they are not only allowed behind the choir screen, but they can learn by looking at St. Francis and listening to the monks. Women too are permitted to enter this area, as they stand at the threshold of the choir screen; however, they occupy a more ambiguous position: at once marginally placed on the threshold and centrally placed laterally in the choir screen. This fresco thus offers evidence of artistic innovation to art historians, and also to social historians pointing to distinctions in gendered interactions along with the approaches to the secular and divine at the time.

The Last Judgement

In the early years of the 1300s, the wealthy money-lender Enrico Scrovegni built a private chapel in the city of Padua, and employed Giotto to devise a decorative scheme for the entire interior. The result was a mature masterpiece with a cohesive overall identity and a new approach to spatiality in painting. As the art historian Anne Mueller van der Haegen puts it, Giotto "portrays image, figures and space in relation to the picture surface in a new form." The Last Judgement painted on one wall of the chapel is particularly noteworthy in this regard. In this fresco, Giotto helps to forge a connection between the viewer and the divine events depicted by playing with the tropes of real and illusionistic space. In an unprecedented way, Giotto breaks down the boundaries between the painted space of the scene and the physical architecture of the chapel. For example, the angels at the top of the painting are shown peeling back the painted firmament in order to reveal the gates of heaven, while more angels peer around the frame of the real window. Creating even more of an illusionist quality, the robes of the priest kneeling in the foreground are painted to appear as if they are actually hanging over the frame of the door below. Giotto also emphasizes the connection between this world and the next by making the unusual move of including a portrait of his patron, Enrico Scrovegni, holding a model of his chapel and offering it to the enthroned Christ. While Giotto probably did this at his patron's request, it was unusual because Scrovegni was still alive at the time. By placing him on the side of the blessed, Giotto indicates Scrovegni's piety; this is in stark contrast to the poet Dante (then a resident of Padua) who had condemned Scrovegni to Hell in his Divine Comedy . The Scrovegni Chapel would prove to be of great significance to later artists, including the modernist artists working in London at the start of the 20 th century. For example, Roger Fry writes in an article about Giotto that the achievement of the Scrovegni Chapel frescoes "is an entirely original discovery of new possibilities in the relation of forms to one another."

Egg tempera fresco - Scrovegni Chapel, Padua

Lamentation

Giotto's Lamentation of the Death of Christ (a popular narrative for 14 th century religious paintings) is the most famous of his frescoes for the Arena Chapel in Padua. Considered a bone-fide masterpiece of proto-renaissance painting, Giotto's frescoes revealed a ground-breaking style of naturalism, overturning the flat, two-dimensional, conventions of medieval painting. The Arena (or Scrovegni) Chapel murals consist of 39 consecutive scenes depicting events in the life of the Virgin Mary and events in the life of Christ. The overarching theme is one of redemption and this probably reflected a desire for the Scrovegni family, who grew rich on moneylending, to appease their conscience and redress their sins. In Giotto's Lamentation , Christ has been lifted down from the cross and his lifeless body is attended to by haloed relatives and disciples. Mary, the focus of the picture, cradles her son's head while Mary Magdalene mourns at Christ's feet. John the Evangelist, meanwhile, opens his arms wide in a gesture that connotes devastation and sympathy for Christ's suffering. Giotto renders the mourners' emotions through the fine detail in their hands and feet, and in their bowed heads and open mouths that appear to quiver in grief. Not only does Giotto bring his human figures to life, his mise-en-scène lends the image a greater sense of spatial realism too. For instance, the foreshortened figures of the grieving angels, and the diagonal lines of the mountain ridge, bring a sense of deep-space to the composition. The combination of naturalized human figures and three dimensional "depth" effectively signalled the demise (amongst progressives at least) of the flat, largely symbolic, Byzantine style in art. Giotto's approach provided inspiration for the Florentine Renaissance and, more widely, Renaissance art throughout Europe. For his part, Giotto's style carried his faith in the message of St. Francis of Assisi which espoused a new sense of religious freedom whereby the mortal would be transformed into a better (higher) being through the touch of the divine.

Fresco - Arena Chapel, Padua

Ognissanti Madonna

The innovations made by Giotto in this large-scale painting of the Madonna and Child are made particularly apparent through comparing the work with treatments of the same subject by Giotto's slightly older contemporaries Duccio and Cimabue, which hang near the work in the Uffizi Gallery. Giotto's version of the scene, painted 20-30 years after those of his his peers, stands out because of his masterful use of architectural perspective to represent the throne, and the suggestion of a pictorial space that more closely resembles reality, in which the attendant figures, while smaller than the Madonna, otherwise obey the spatial rules of the painted scene. The Madonna and Child's raised position within the picture is symbolic of their spiritual elevation, but it is made realistic by the depiction of a throne with steps leading up to it; they are not left floating in mid-air as in previous treatments of the same subject. Through this device, the Christ child's hand, raised in blessing, becomes the focus-point of the painting, where most of the lines of perspective come together. Moreover, the gazes of the surrounding figures are directed at the holy pair, encouraging the viewer to send their gaze in the same direction and to share in the depicted act of adoration. The painting is also notable for the clear sense of anatomical realism with which the figures are depicted. In previous eras, the anatomy of the figures beneath their clothes was generally not closely attended to, where Giotto takes care to suggest the human fleshliness of the Virgin and the baby Jesus. This is particularly highlighted through the subtle representation of Mary's knee and breasts through the fabric of her clothes, as well as the baby's body in its translucent robe. Giotto's depiction of the Virgin and Child as a human mother and child, as well as divine beings, was an important influence for later Renaissance artists, especially figures such as Filippo Lippi, tutor to Botticelli, whose images of the Madonna and Child develop the human element of the scene, eventually reducing the figures' gold halos to simple symbolic rings. The 20 th- century sculptor Henry Moore was also impressed by what he felt were the sculptural qualities of Giotto's figures, describing Giotto's paintings as "the finest sculpture I met in Italy." He later made several mother and child sculptures, and they show a clear line of influence from Giotto's Madonna and Child.

Tempera and gold on panel - The Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Design sketch for the Campanile

The bell tower of Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence Cathedral) was begun by Giotto in 1334, taken on following his death (in 1337) by Andrea Pisano, and completed in 1359 by Francesco Talenti, who added the large windows on the upper levels. This sketch, which is attributed to Giotto, depicts the artist's original design for the bell tower (campanile). From the beginning of his career, Giotto's paintings have incorporated architectural structures and buildings, so it was perhaps inevitable that at some point in his later career he would turn to architectural design directly. Giotto's design was completed with a remit to complement the polychromy of the cathedral as a whole (according to Arnolfo di Cambio's design). Though it is problematic to attribute sole authorship to the "Giotto Tower" (given his untimely death) it is accepted that he was directly responsible for the tower's bottom third. Indeed, on the strength of his contribution to the cathedral's design, Giotto joined Brunelleschi (designer of the cathedral's dome) and Alberti (author of the first printed book on architecture "De re aedificatoria", 1450) as one of the founding fathers of Renaissance architecture. Giotto's sketch is for an ornate building in the Gothic style that accords with the imagined buildings of his earlier paintings. His lower section includes colored marble - white, green, pink and red predominantly - organized in geometric patterns. His design is complemented with a series of sculptural reliefs, designed by Giotto and executed by Pisano and other Florentine masters (including Donatello and Luca Della Robbia). Taken as a whole, the relief cycle represents a celebration of knowledge and thinking and charts the development of civilization through a series of panels. Collectively the reliefs (relievos) convey the idea that exploration, and learning through technology and theology, had made mankind worthy (potentially) of divine redemption. The practices of science and technology are represented through allegorical depictions of astronomy, architecture, weaving, navigation and mathematics. These panels sit alongside representations of biblical and classical figures, while the panel representing medicine depicts the consulting room of a doctor in the act of observing urine contained in the glass receptacles (matula) against the light, the goal being to symbolize the link between observed analysis and diagnosis (indeed, the matula was taken up as an emblem by practicing physicians). The Bell Tower upper panels meanwhile are dedicated to astronomy. The relief on the south side (pointing towards via de' Calzaiuoli) shows the "inventor" of astronomy, Gionitus, in search of celestial bodies using astronomical instruments, while the west side celebrates the celestial bodies of medieval astronomy. The tower has attracted much praise through the ages from writers and artists. The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow addresses it in his poem "Giotto's Tower": In the old Tuscan town stands Giotto's tower, The lily of Florence blossoming in stone, - A vision, a delight, and a desire, - The builder's perfect and centennial flower, That in the night of ages bloomed alone, But wanting still the glory of the spire.

Ink on parchment - Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence Cathedral), Florence

Biography of Giotto

Very little is known about the biographical details of Giotto di Bondone's life. He is thought to have been the son of a peasant, born in the Mugello, a mountainous area to the north of Florence, which was also the home country of the Medici family who would later rise to power in the city. Giotto's birthplace has been attributed to a house in the small village of Vicchio and the date of his birth given as 1277 by the writer and artist Giorgio Vasari in his influential 1550 text The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects . However, other sources suggest he was born in 1267, which seems more likely judging by the maturity of some of his early works.

Early Training and Work

The accomplished sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti (whose achievements in early Renaissance sculpture were indebted to Giotto) recounts a legendary story in his 1452 written work Commentaries on the Tuscan Artists of the Trecento . He tells how the young Giotto was tending sheep as a child and drew one of them from life on a stone slab. The foremost painter of the day, Cimabue , came across the boy's sketch and was so impressed that he immediately took the young Giotto on as an apprentice.

Whatever the true beginnings of their professional relationship, it seems likely that Giotto was apprenticed to Cimabue, probably from the age of around 10, where he learned the art of painting. It is thought that Giotto travelled to Rome with the older artist before accompanying him to Assisi, where Cimabue had been commissioned to decorate the lower of the two churches recently built on top of each other to commemorate St Francis.

Sometime around 1290, Giotto married a Florentine woman called Ricevuta di Lapo del Pela - better known as "Ciuta"- with whom he had a number of children. (There is a quite probably baseless story that someone once asked Giotto how he could create such beautiful paintings but produce such ugly children, to which he replied that he made his children in the dark.) Around the same time as his marriage to Ciuta, Cimabue left Assisi for another commission and Giotto took over his work and was approached to create a fresco cycle for the top half of the walls in the upper church. Although Cimabue was Giotto's teacher, the pupil soon usurped his master, and his skill was recognized in his lifetime by contemporaries such as the poet Dante Alighieri, who wrote in his Divine Comedy : "Oh empty glory of human powers ... In painting Cimabue thought to hold the field, and now Giotto has the cry, so that the other's fame is diminished."

Mature Period

Between around 1290 and 1295 Giotto undertook his first major work in Assisi, in which he made a number of significant pictorial advances. His work was a success, and he was commissioned to create a further cycle of frescoes for the church. After a relatively prolonged stay in Assisi, Giotto began a period of frequent travel among the city states of Italy; a pattern that would characterize his whole career. Giotto set up workshops in a number of different locations where his style was emulated and where many of his assistants went on to strike out with their own careers.

At the turn of the century Giotto traveled to Florence, Rimini and possibly Rome. He then spent around three years in Padua working on one of his most complete and best-known works in the Arena Chapel. During his stay in Padua, Giotto may have met the poet Dante, who had been exiled there from Florence. In the decade between 1305 and 1315, Giotto seems to have travelled a number of times between Florence and Rome. He worked on commissions for some of the most important churches, including St Peter's in Rome (the church that preceded the current Basilica) where he was commissioned by the Roman Cardinal Jacopo Stefaneschi to create two works: Giotto's only known mosaic work (c.1310) and a large polyptych altarpiece (c.1313).

In the early 1300s the seat of the papacy was not in Rome but in Avignon, France. The cardinals of Rome were fighting for the papacy to be returned to their city and duly commissioned Giotto to produce works, including a mosaic for the façade of the old St. Peter's Basilica (of which only fragments remain), Rome's most significant papal church. Cardinal Stefaneschi expressed his confidence that the Pope would eventually return and set about elevating the spiritual importance of his Roman seat. It is thought therefore that Stefaneschi commissioned Giotto - who was by now a painter of considerable professional renown - as part of his political strategy.

During this period, Giotto also received important commissions for the church of Santa Croce in Florence. Somewhere around 1313, meanwhile, he worked on a chapel dedicated to the Peruzzi's, a rich and influential family of bankers, in which he created two fresco cycles depicting John the Evangelist and John the Baptist. The member of the Peruzzi family who commissioned the work was named "Giovanni" or "John", and the frescoes would appear to be intended to forge a link between the family, the city of Florence and the patron saints that they worshipped.

The Peruzzi Chapel was much admired by Renaissance painters. Indeed, Michelangelo is known to have studied the frescoes which exemplified Giotto's skill in chiaroscuro and his ability to accurately represent perspective in the ancient buildings. It is known too that Giotto's compositions later influenced Masaccio's work on Cappella Brancacci. According to surviving financial records, somewhere between 1314-27, Giotto also painted the famous altarpiece the Ognissanti Madonna , now housed in the Uffizi (where it is on display next Cimabue's Santa Trinita Madonna and Duccio's Rucellai Madonna ). Though Giotto settled for a time in Florence, it is known that he returned to Assisi between 1316-1320 where he worked on the decoration of the lower church (left unfinished by his old master Cimabue). Returning to Rome in 1320, Giotto completed the Stefaneschi Triptych (now housed in the Vatican Museum) for Cardinal Jacopo, who also commissioned him to decorate St. Peter's apse (the frescoes were destroyed during the 16th century renovation).

Late Period

In 1328 Giotto was summoned by Robert of Anjou, the King of Naples, to his court. It is possible that he was recommended to Robert of Anjou by the Bardi family, for whom he had recently completed a series of frescoes for the family chapel in the church of Santa Croce. In Naples, meanwhile, Giotto became a court painter, which meant that he gave up the more precarious itinerant lifestyle that had so far characterized his career. He was given a salary and a stipend for materials and assistance, and in 1330 Robert of Anjou named him "familiaris", meaning that he had become part of the royal household. Regrettably, almost nothing of his work from this period survives. A fragment of a fresco portraying the Lamentation of Christ in the church of Santa Chiara bears his mark, as does the group of Illustrious Men that adorn the windows of the Santa Barbara Chapel of Castel Nuovo, though historians usually attribute these works to pupils of Giotto.

After his time in Naples, Giotto stayed briefly in Bologna where he painted a Polyptych for the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, and, it is thought, a lost decoration for the Chapel in the Cardinal Legate's Castle. In 1334, Giotto returned once more to Florence. Here, he was appointed 'capomaestro' or Master of Municipal Construction Works and head of the Cathedral Mason's Guild. He oversaw artworks for the construction of Florence's cathedral, while his own contribution was a design for a bell tower (though only the lower part was built to his stipulations). The new church, work on which commenced at the end of the 13 th century, was modelled on the 7 th century church of Santa Reparata, and would not be completed for another 200 years. As a mark of the esteem in which he was held, Giotto was buried in the Santa Reparata at the expense of the city following his death on 8th January 1337.

The Legacy of Giotto

Giotto's influence over the development of the Italian Renaissance and, consequently, over much of the history of European art, is significant. Recognized in his own time as a master by poets and thinkers such as Dante and Boccaccio, Giotto's developments of pictorial space and a quest for an unprecedented degree of realism would inspire the early instigators of the Renaissance in Florence. In particular, his influence can be seen in the sculptural revolution instigated by figures such as Lorenzo Ghiberti and Donatello in the first decade of the 1400s, while his artistic inheritance can also be recognized in the paintings of the young Masaccio forward of 1420.

Giotto's influence comes particularly from his incipient steps towards Renaissance Humanism, a school of thought that would be essential to the development of Renaissance art. Humanism involved looking to the world of antiquity for learning and pictorial techniques. In Giotto's work, this can be seen in his interest in depicting human emotions and in his modeling of the human figure, and in his ability to break down the distance between biblical characters and human viewers. Humanism can also be found in Giotto's interest in architecture, proportion, perspective and even engineering. These were also significant elements of later developments in Renaissance humanist thought and art, in which human beings became central to artistic endeavor and the realistic depiction of figures and emotion became paramount.

It is notable that there was a significant gap between the early groundbreaking work of Giotto around 1300 and the major revolution in art that began around a century later. This is probably because the years in between Giotto's death and the beginning of the 15 th century were marked by plague and economic downturn. The plague epidemic of 1348 took the lives of a huge proportion of the inhabitants of Florence, as well as of cities such as Siena, which before this point had a burgeoning artistic movement and style of its own, but from which it never recovered. It was not until the relative stability and prosperity of Florence at the beginning of the 1400s that Giotto's achievements could be fully admired and built upon.

Giotto's influence continued to be recognized by later artists, and his work saw a resurgence of interest among modernists working in the first half of the 20 th century, including figures such as Henry Moore and Roger Fry .

Influences and Connections

Useful Resources on Giotto

• Giotto (Masters of Italian Art Series) Our Pick By Anne Mueller van der Haegen
• Complete Works of Giotto By Peter Russell
• Giotto By Francesca Flores d'Arcais
• Cambridge Companion to Giotto Our Pick By Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona
• Giotto: A Star is Born Our Pick By Jonathan Jones / The Guardian / December 4, 2004
• Stubborn Mysteries of Giotto By Roderick Conway Morris / The New York Times / July 8, 2000
• Life of Giotto, from Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects By Giorgio Vasari / 1550-1568
• The Truth about Giotto By Alasdair Palmer / The Telegraph / August 9, 1997
• Cimabue, Santa Trinita Madonna & Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna Our Pick
• Giotto, Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel (part 1) Our Pick
• Giotto, The Ognissanti Madonna
• Comparisons of Cimabue and Giotto

Related Artists

Related Movements & Topics

Content compiled and written by Anna Souter

Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Antony Todd

Nativity (Birth of Jesus)

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This fresco of the Nativity is one of Giotto's most significant works, both among his paintings that sought to depict the life of the Virgin Mary, but also in its innovative style.

Introduction.

Part of a series in Padua's Scrovegni Chapel , and his first mature work, the cycle is considered to be one of the greatest achievements in Western art. The frescoes fill the chapel, forming a narrative. The series was commissioned around 1305 by his patron Enrico degli Scrovegni, to serve as a place of worship and a final resting place for the family, although it wasn't their parish church. It may also have been an act of atonement for Enrico, who was a moneylender or usurer, with a father who featured in Dante's Seventh Circle of Hell. The chapel and monastery are now part of the city's museum.

Nativity was part of Giotto's most influential work, as he started to develop beyond stylised Byzantine formality. He was beginning to produce more natural and realistic paintings, with folds of flowing robes, three-dimensional shapes, and figures that faced away from the viewer to create more space. He wanted his subjects to have movement and life, so that onlookers felt a connection and involvement with what they were looking at. Giotto also altered the traditional group of animals in this Nativity, adding an ox and an ass, with the former perhaps representing the New Testament, while the ass might signify the Old Testament. It could also be said to represent a contrast between those who stuck to the old beliefs, and those who embraced the changes that came with Christ and Christianity.

The overall cycle of work that Giotto produced in the chapel ran into the many dozens of artworks. He called upon the assistance of 40 artists to help out with the completion of this project and would have had to work quickly because of the nature of fresco painting. The Nativity, Birth of Christ has become known as one of the most respected items from this series, with other notable artworks to be found here including the likes of Lamentation , The Last Judgement and The Arrest of Christ (Kiss of Judas) . It was a huge undertaking but the confident artist knew that he could direct others for much of the work, leaving him time to concentrate on the initial designs as well as the more important parts of each composition. Their achievements are still lauded today, with the chapel remaining a popular stop off for many Italian art trips organised for international travellers.

Table of Contents

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Giotto's treatment of this event as a drama between mother and baby is another innovation, where emotion is conveyed, unlike in the more formal Byzantine paintings that Giotto was familiar with. It's possible here to discern a sadness in Mary when she gazes at Jesus, as if aware that she will lose him one day. In Byzantine art, the birth of Christ traditionally took place in a cave, but Giotto places his Nativity in a shed, with livestock that eat, breathe and move like real farm animals that have wandered in for warmth and food. The artist took a supervisory role in some of the artworks, designing all of the initial content and then overseeing the work of others to implement it. He would ensure that a consistent approach was carried out across the full cycle of paintings.

Giotto was entirely comfortable in working with tempera or fresco techniques, and would choose between them depending on the requirements of each project. His series of frescoes within the Padua chapel would require the use of the latter, where fast drying plaster would react against the artist's work to create each design. The method used meant that the artists would only have a short window in which to complete their painting, with Giotto overseeing the progress of each assistant. He would construct drawings initially to lay out each piece and then call upon his skilled helpers to implement each design themselves. Giotto kept a close eye on proceedings in order to ensure a consistent body of work was delivered by the end of the project. He would be clear on the types of materials used, for example, so that colours were consistent from one iteration to the next.

The artist worked on this series of frescoes between the years of 1304-1306. The project would have taken much longer were it not for the support of a large number of assistants, who took Giotto's lead and implemented his designs one at a time. With plaster drying quickly, each design had only a short window in which it had to be painted, increasing the need for helpers. The topics covered were related to scenes from the life of Joachim, the Virgin and Christ, with Last Judgment then being added within the chapel too. Giotto would travel around Italy frequently in order to complete various commissions, but was relatively new to Padua at the time of this large project. He would also complete work in Assisi, Rome, Florence and more, with his artistic reputation becoming particularly strong once his career had truly taken off. His willingness to travel certainly enabled him to take on more work and increase the number of opportunities that came his way.

Giotto di Bondone would return to the theme of The Nativity in c.1311 - c.1320 for a project within the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi. Natività, therefore, takes inspiration from the artist's earlier work in the Padua chapel and makes some adjustments to produce this new iteration. The layout for his follow up piece is fairly similar, featuring the same angle of architecture in which the main figures are placed. There is also the landscape touches and supporting figures found in the earlier piece, though with postures and angles altered. Through good fortune, the Assisi version remains in better condition today, with many of the original colours still visible and clear. The artist would re-visit other key themes in this manner throughout his career, including the Crucifixion , Madonna and Child and also The Adoration of the Magi .

Giotto di Bondone may or may not have been born a Florentine, but some reports claim that he was discovered by the artist Cimabue while working in the Tuscan countryside, and taken to Florence as an apprentice. In any case, whether the young, untrained painter was formally or informally schooled in the Byzantine style, he produced sublime art in that tradition. However, when he moved beyond that to experiment with a completely new way of portraying people and events, it changed the way in which painters viewed and interpreted subjects forever. This revolutionary approach continued its influence into the period of the Renaissance, and to other great artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo and Masaccio, reaching down the centuries to today. Giotto's Nativity and the rest of his frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel started art lovers on that journey.

The artwork can be found in its original position in Padua's Scrovegni Chapel. The Nativity of Jesus sits in the middle tier of the south wall and is accompanied by The Adoration of the Magi, The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple , The Flight into Egypt and The Massacre of the Innocents . The chapel itself features on many Italian art tours for both domestic and international tourists and is relatively close to the city of Venice for those looking to discover some of the true cultural gems of this country. UNESCO have promoted this location in recent years too, bringing it an even greater prominence but efforts have been continually made to protect Giotto's work from the constant stream of tourists who continue to flock to this historical, stunning location which offers much both in terms of painting and also architecture.

This critical Christian theme derives directly from the biblical gospels of Luke and Matthew. It would become one of the most reproduced items from the Bible in western art. Some of the most famous names to have covered it at least once include the likes of Sandro Botticelli with Nativity of Jesus from circa 1473–1475. It has been seen most within Italian and North European art, with other examples including Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence by Caravaggio, Adoration of the Christ Child by Gerard van Honthorst and also another interpretation by Petrus Christus . Each generation of artist would take what had gone before and then add their own technical and compositional innovations on top, just as been the case leading into the Proto Renaissance in which Giotto would bring his own ideas, such as a deeper perspective and greater use of emotion.

Some of the earliest Nativity paintings that have been uncovered date back to the 9th century, with their style being rather different to that employed here by Giotto. He would bring much more depth to the painting, though the same figures would appear as before. It was only later that painters started to work more freely in how they handled this topic, which reflects a wider movement towards free expression. Paul Gauguin, for example, offers a great contrast in how he presented the content without any of the divinity, but rather a fairly normal every day scene. The Baroque era would provide drama and exquisite detail within their own interpretations, but after that religious art would be much less common and so depictions of the Nativity were not embraced so much. In today's contemporary world we see all manner of alternative approaches, though few have anything like the same level of precision and technical mastery as that displayed by the likes of Giotto.

We do know that the artist is likely to have learnt his trade under Cimabue. His influence, and specifically the use of gold paint, continued into Giotto's career. The teacher was famous for more of a two-dimensional approach, though, which his student moved away from and so it would be wrong to ignore the many innovations brought about by Giotto himself. We also know that Giotto travelled around Italy frequently, and he would have come across a great amount of art from previous centuries in doing so. Some of these artworks may have come from anonymous artists, and might not even exist today, making it hard to point at elements of Giotto's methods and confidently attribute them to earlier painters. Indeed, a large amount of his own work still holds controversy over its attribution, though there can be no doubt as to the role he played in delivering the breaktaking display which can still be found in the Padua chapel today.

More GIOTTO Paintings

The Arrest of Christ (Kiss of Judas)

Lamentation

Stefaneschi Triptych

Ognissanti Madonna

The Last Judgement

The Flight into Egypt

Adoration of the Magi

More renaissance artists.

Sandro Botticelli

Leonardo da Vinci

Albrecht Durer

Hieronymus Bosch

Article author.

Tom Gurney in an art history expert. He received a BSc (Hons) degree from Salford University, UK, and has also studied famous artists and art movements for over 20 years. Tom has also published a number of books related to art history and continues to contribute to a number of different art websites. You can read more on Tom Gurney here.

The Virgin Mary Why is the Madonna so popular in art?

The Virgin Mary, or the Madonna, is one of the most popular tropes in Western religious art. Since 431 CE, when a council of Christian bishops met in Ephesus and canonized Mary as Theotokos , or the God-bearer, her holy figure has been used to represent a wide range of virtues. The singular madonna may gesture benediction & prayer on behalf of humanity, the madonna and child shows humanity’s embrace of the holy son, the Madonnas of humility sit on the ground to display their humble piety, the adoring madonna kneels at the foot of the christ-child. Madonna Lactans breastfeed the young Jesus to impart wisdom, the Virgin Hodegetria points out Christ’s divinity to humanity, Annunciations show Mary visited by an angel announcing her virgin conception, Assumptions of the Virgin show Mary ascending, often alive, to heaven, and the Black Madonnas depict a dark-skinned Mary, connecting to syncretic or cross-cultural faiths in the maternal divine. Let’s talk about cults. The Council of Ephesus had a lot on their plate when it came to the Virgin Mary. Until the year 431, Nestorius, the Archbishop of Constantinople, held that Mary could be called Christotokos , or Christ-bearer but not God-bearer, reflecting his belief that Christ was not a singular being, but divinity and humanity trapped in the same body. This went over poorly with the 250 bishops summoned to Ephesus, and Nestorius was charged with heresy and deposed, and the unexpected result of this orthodox drama was the canonization of the so-called Cult of Mary .

Cults, in the historical sense, were not personality-driven fringe religious movements with a taste for Kool Aid, they were, as Roman philosopher Cicero described them cultus deorum —the “cultivation of the gods” or “giving the gods their due.” The Cult of Mary, then, was the religious practice of her veneration, and by defining Mary as “God-bearer” the Council changed worship of Mary from idolatry to glorification of a divine mother. The rest, as they say, is 1600 years of history. As one of the longest-standing figures in Western Art, it’s fun to watch the Virgin Mary evolve over time. She’s a fluid character, embodying both the somber faith of the Gothic era in Carlo Crivelli’s insouciant Madonna and Child Enthroned , and the warmth and humanism of the Italian Renaissance in Giampietrino’s Madonna and Child . And the modern era takes Mary even further. She is transformed into a vampiric temptress by Edvard Munch, a faceless every-mother by Mainie Jellett, a degenerate nightmare by Alice Neel, and by Henry Ossawa Tanner, back to the form she must have had more than two millennia ago—a young, confused girl, by herself .

When looking at these many, many madonnas, I find it interesting to take note of whether the artist is a man or a woman. With notable exceptions, like Tanner, male artists approach Mary as an icon, an archetype. Virtuous maiden, stately matron, grieving mother, ocassionally femme fatal. She is what her role proscribes her to be. Women artists, one the other hand, capture over and over again the humanness of the character. Elisabetta Sirani’s serene Mary is the cover of this article. Julia Margaret Cameron discovers both the beauty and the exhausting, constant labor of motherhood in the remarkable photograph Madonna with Children . Marianne Stokes depicts the new mother lost in a much-needed nap, and Barbara Longhi gives the ever-patient woman a book to read during her centuries-long modeling session.

Reed Enger, "The Virgin Mary, Why is the Madonna so popular in art?," in Obelisk Art History , Published June 03, 2015; last modified November 08, 2022, http://www.arthistoryproject.com/subjects/religion/the-virgin-mary/.

Altarpiece of Santa Reparata — Front Giotto di Bondone, 1310

Angels Entertaining the Holy Child Marianne Stokes, 1887 – 1893

Assumption of the Virgin Titian, 1516 – 1518

Chellini Madonna Donatello, 1450

Coronation of the Virgin Diego Velázquez, 1635 – 1636

Degenerate Madonna Alice Neel, 1930

Doni Tondo Michelangelo, 1507

Feast of Rose Garlands Albrecht Dürer, 1506

Fiesole Altarpiece Fra Angelico, 1424 – 1425

Head of the Virgin Elisabetta Sirani, 1638 – 1665

Holy Family with Sts Anne and Joachim Elisabetta Sirani, 1662

Immaculate Conception Francisco de Zurbarán, 1635

Madonna Lorenzo Monaco, 1400

Madonna Edvard Munch, 1894

Madonna and Child Luca della Robbia, 1475

Madonna and Child Carlo Crivelli, 1480

Madonna and Child Giampietrino, 1510

Madonna and Child Giampietrino, 1510 – 1525

Madonna and Child Barbara Longhi, 1580 – 1585

Madonna and Child Enthroned Carlo Crivelli, 1472

Madonna and Child with Scroll Luca della Robbia, 1455

Madonna and child with the infant saint john the baptist orsola maddalena caccia, 1625.

Madonna Enthroned Giotto di Bondone, 1310

Madonna Laboris (Sketch) Nicholas Roerich, 1936

Madonna of the Cherries Giampietrino, 1525

Madonna of the Rosary Peter Paul Rubens, 1607

Madonna with Child and Saints Raphael Sanzio, 1502

Madonna with Children Julia Margaret Cameron, 1864

Maesta of Santa Trinita Cimabue, 1280 – 1290

Mary Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1914

Pietà Michelangelo, 1498 – 1499

Pieta William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1876

Pietà Gustave Moreau, 1876

Polyptych of Bologna Giotto di Bondone, 1330 – 1335

Polyptych of Perugia Piero della Francesca, 1470

Polyptych of the Misericordia — Detail of the Madonna Piero della Francesca, 1460 – 1462

Portable Icon with the Virgin Eleousa 1300

Purissima Joseph Stella, 1927

Rest on the Flight to Egypt Caravaggio, 1597

Standing Madonna in Mourning (G.Z.) Monogrammist GZ or Gabriel Zehender, 1520

Study for Spring Madonna Mainie Jellett, 1939

Study for the Annunciation Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1898

The Adoration of the Magi Hieronymus Bosch, 1475

The Adoration of the Magi Hieronymus Bosch, 1515

The Adoration of the Shepherds Anton Raphael Mengs, 1764 – 1765

The Annunciation Jan Van Eyck, 1434 – 1436

The Annunciation El Greco, 1596 – 1600

The Annunciation Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1850

The Annunciation Edward Burne-Jones, 1879

The Annunciation Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1898

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Art & Design

Mother, empress, virgin, faith: 'picturing mary' and her many meanings.

Susan Stamberg

Sandro Botticelli's Madonna and Child, painted in 1480, shows a reflective Mary in deep blue. Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan/National Museum of Women in the Arts hide caption

Sandro Botticelli's Madonna and Child, painted in 1480, shows a reflective Mary in deep blue.

This Christmas, images of the Virgin Mary created over five centuries glow on the walls of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. Mary's role as Woman, Mother and Idea is portrayed by Michelangelo, Botticelli, Caravaggio, Rembrandt as well as other major and lesser-known artists from the 1400s through the 1900s.

"I think of Mary as being brave and strong," says chief curator Kathryn Wat. "I think sometimes people see meekness and humility. I see that, too, but under-girding all of that I see strength."

Monsignor Timothy Verdon, canon of the Florence Cathedral, is guest curator of the exhibition. "Mary is one of the main themes in Western art for more than 1,000 years," Verdon explains. "Not only are there more images of her than of anyone else — including her son — her son is often part of the image, but the interest of the image is normally more focused on Mary, who is the adult, than on the Christ child."

Curator Timothy Verdon says "Mary is unexpectedly fashionable" in Fra Filippo Lippi's Madonna and Child , painted in the 1460s. Provincia di Firenze, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence/National Museum of Women in the Arts hide caption

Curator Timothy Verdon says "Mary is unexpectedly fashionable" in Fra Filippo Lippi's Madonna and Child , painted in the 1460s.

In the 1460s, Fra Filippo Lippi of Florence saw the Madonna as regal and queenly — a kind of Byzantine empress. "Mary is unexpectedly fashionable," Verdon describes, "in a splendid crimson underdress and a rich mantel and — my goodness — pearls adorning the hem of her diaphanous veil — a kind of very delicate fabric [that] was immediately recognized at the period as a luxury fabric."

Her filigreed halo is made of gold and her face is serene. But there's a sadness there — a premonition that the big-bellied baby she hugs will meet suffering and death.

"This — and other similar works in which we feel that aura of sadness — were made in an age when one of the most common facts in society was infant mortality," Verdon says. "So for people to see the Madonna and the child veiled with this premonition of suffering really fit into a very important part of their lives."

Sandro Botticelli's Madonna, from 1480, is also reflective — and exquisite, in her deep blue robe and delicate golden halo. A century later, in 1570, Federico Barocci's Mary is very human. She's picnicking on the flight into Egypt. Her head is bare (she's put her straw hat on the ground), she's barefoot, and as her baby reaches happily for some cherries Joseph offers, Mary is catching stream water into a silver bowl.

Federico Barocci's 1570 Rest on the Flight into Egypt shows Mary catching water in a silver bowl as Joseph offers cherries to Jesus. Vatican Museums,/National Museum of Women in the Arts hide caption

Federico Barocci's 1570 Rest on the Flight into Egypt shows Mary catching water in a silver bowl as Joseph offers cherries to Jesus.

"This becomes a wonderful symbol of what womanhood and especially motherhood is — it's a source of life for the families," Verdon says. "It's a wonderfully simple, charming, [but] at the same time, deep picture."

Another bare-headed Mary, chalked in red by Michelangelo around 1525, shows her as powerful. "Not only is her head uncovered, her arms are uncovered, and it looks as if she spends all her time at the gym," Verdon says.

She has muscles — which Verdon says symbolized the strength of human desire for God. Each work in this "Picturing Mary" exhibition is layered with meaning. A bowl of fruit symbolizes fecundity. A closed book moves God's word to her womb. A thorn bracelet foreshadows Jesus' agony on the cross.

In the 17th century, Artemisia Gentileschi broke from traditions that kept women painting still lifes and portraits, to show a theological topic in a way no man had done — Mary nursing her child.

Female artists portrayed Mary in a very different light — above, Artemisia Gentileschi's 1609 oil on canvas, Madonna and Child. Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Florence/National Museum of Women in the Arts hide caption

Female artists portrayed Mary in a very different light — above, Artemisia Gentileschi's 1609 oil on canvas, Madonna and Child.

"The idea here is that it's quite forthright," says Wat. "She's revealed her breast, the baby's getting ready to nurse. .... It's very frank, and this is not the way male artists typically treated the subject. They were a little more roundabout, and things were sort of more unnatural-looking or shaded somehow with fabric, or the position was a little different. This is just all right there."

Gentileschi's Mary is monumental — she fills the canvas. An earthy, natural woman, she holds her breast to her eager child with no trace of false modesty or shame.

Society — and the church — wanted different Marys as the centuries passed, and artists reflected those shifts. By 1884, Nicolò Barabino designed a mural with the basic Marian elements: blue robe, halo, book of God's words. But her face is veiled, and there's no baby. Here she's become an abstract idea rather than a specific mother or queen or virgin — this is a work about faith.

Nicolò Barabino's 1884 mural Faith with Representations of the Arts shows a more abstract understanding of Mary. Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence/National Museum of Women in the Arts hide caption

"So faith suddenly is impersonated by Mary," Verdon says. "Mary becomes the most emblematic figure of what it means to be a believer." He believes this shift in emphasis is the 1880s version of keeping up with the times. "The world had already become much less Christian than it had [been] in earlier periods," he explains. "The church, knowing that, looks for a neutral and almost philosophical language in which to re-propose some of the traditional beliefs. Since everyone would agree that faith — which may not necessarily be religious faith; it could be political faith, it could be a faith in ethical principles — that faith is a good thing."

Faith, belief, worship, holiness, mother of God — the Blessed Mother means many different things to Christians around the globe.

Standing amid the 60 artworks, many of them masterpieces, I ask curator Timothy Verdon who Mary is to him. He answers: "She's my mother."

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The J. Paul Getty Museum

Visualizing the Virgin Mary

Figurative art never looked so rebellious. Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times Art Critic

The Virgin Mary is one of the most important figures in the Christian tradition. This exhibition presents illuminated manuscripts depicting myriad stories and images from the Middle Ages that celebrated Mary as a personal intercessor, a compassionate mother, and a heavenly queen. The legacy of representing Mary is also shown through the venerated image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the Americas, revealing how Mary provides different meanings for viewers across time.

This exhibition is presented in English and Spanish. Esta exhibición se presenta en inglés y en español.

SELECTED WORKS

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Illuminating Women in the Medieval World

These illuminated manuscripts reveal to us the many facets of medieval womanhood and slices of medieval life.

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Discover more about the works featured in the exhibition.

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Is This the Oldest Image of the Virgin Mary?

By Michael Peppard

• Jan. 30, 2016

THE Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the most revered woman in the Christian tradition. In the history of art, she appears almost as frequently as Jesus himself. But for the past 80 years, one of the oldest paintings of her may have been hiding in plain sight.

At the Yale University Art Gallery hang wall paintings from one of the world’s oldest churches. Buried by the middle of the third century, this house-church from eastern Syria had images of Jesus, Peter and David. The gallery showcases a well-preserved procession of veiled women that once surrounded its baptistery, a room for Christian initiation.

Off to the side, seldom noticed among the likes of Jesus and Peter, stands a different wall fragment, faded but still discernible: a woman bent over a well. Holding the rope of her vessel, she looks out at the viewer or perhaps over her shoulder, seemingly startled in the act of drawing water.

Who is she? The museum’s identification is certainly plausible: “The painting most likely depicts a scene from the encounter between Christ (not shown) and a woman from Samaria,” as recorded in the Gospel of John. But historians also know that the Samaritan Woman, a repentant sinner who conversed at length with Jesus, was usually depicted in dialogue with him. This woman appears to be alone.

Is it possible that a painting from a building excavated in 1932 and publicized around the world has not been correctly identified? These murals come from the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire, a military outpost variously called “Dura” or “Europos” in antiquity.

Perched high above the Euphrates in the region that is now called Deir ez-Zor, the ruins of Dura-Europos have yielded more distinct artifacts than almost any other ancient archaeological site: an intact Roman shield, a lavishly painted synagogue, a temple to the gods of nearby Palmyra. It is the “Pompeii of the Syrian desert,” declared Michael Rostovtzeff, director of Yale’s excavations at the site.

But no Vesuvius buried this Pompeii. Portions of Dura-Europos were buried intentionally, to bolster a rampart against a Sasanian army invading from the east in the 250s. The misfortune of the Roman garrison, which lost the battle, would become good fortune for historians. The earthen rampart sealed cross-sections of many buildings, including the house-church, so that both contents and date were secure.

The church’s painted baptistery remains a unique discovery. Outside of funerary contexts, such as the catacombs in Rome, there are precious few Christian paintings from before Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in the fourth century. These also offer a glimpse into the beliefs and rituals of Syrian Christians, a community currently in peril.

While the Samaritan Woman at the Well was a respected biblical figure for early Christians, there was actually a more prominent “woman at the well” in Syria: the Virgin Mary during the Annunciation, when an angelic visitor informed her of her miraculous pregnancy. Where does this episode take place? The setting of the canonical account, in the Gospel of Luke, is not specified. But the second-century biography of Mary’s early life, usually called the Protevangelium of James, describes how one day, during a break from her work, “she took the pitcher and went forth to draw water, and behold, a voice said: ‘Hail, you are highly favored, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women.’ And she looked around on the right and on the left to see from where this voice could have come.” During this first encounter, at a well or spring, the angel was heard but not seen. Mary appeared to be alone.

Most people, when they imagine the Annunciation, have in mind some western Renaissance masterpiece: a studious, cloistered Mary welcoming the angel from the comfort of home. But Byzantine images of the scene, though coming centuries later than the figure from Dura-Europos, bear an arresting formal resemblance to it. The brilliant illumination in James of Kokkinobaphos’s “Homilies on the Virgin” and the grand mosaic from the Byzantine monastery at Chora in Istanbul both demonstrate the importance in eastern Christianity of placing Mary at the well. Some manuscripts even depict this type among illuminations of the Gospel of Luke itself, showing that artists preferred the evocative iconographic traditions of the noncanonical text over the unspecified setting of the canonical one. At Chora, Mary’s figure can also be contrasted with the portrayal of the Samaritan Woman in the same church, who looks across a well at a pictured Jesus.

The woman at Dura-Europos has yet more secrets to reveal. Archival photographs and drawings made by the archaeologists on site show that the supposed absence behind the female figure is not totally silent — it speaks a couple of lines. That is to say, a field sketch of the wall done “to show additional details” depicts two painted lines touching the woman’s back, along with a kind of starburst on the front of her torso, features described as “unexplained” in the archaeological report. But with the new interpretation of the figure, in connection with the Eastern iconography that came later, the lines invite a rather evident meaning. They appear to represent a motion toward the woman’s body and a spark of activity within it, as if something invisible were approaching and entering her — an incarnation.

If correct, this woman at a well is the oldest securely datable image of the Virgin Mary. Devotees of the Roman catacombs may demur, since a few female figures there are often presented as Mary. But these are challenging to date with certainty, and many scholars argue that the proposed examples have insufficiently specific iconographic signifiers.

Identifying the oldest image of Mary isn’t an end in itself. Reidentifying this woman helps us to ponder anew the distinctive emphases of early Christians in Syria, who in this baptistery celebrated salvation through images of marriage, pregnancy and birth — as much or more than through participation in a ritualized death. This is not to undermine the power of Jesus’ passion and resurrection accounts, but rather to rebalance the perspective of modern Western viewers, looking back after centuries of art focused on the cross. In the extant art from Dura-Europos, we see the hope of new spiritual birth, but the death of Christ is not pictured once.

Today the paintings from this church are safe. But further opportunities to understand early Syrian Christianity are slipping away, as the archaeological sites of Deir ez-Zor are being systematically plundered under the auspices of the Islamic State. According to satellite images and reports from the ground, the looting pits at Dura-Europos are innumerable. Even while the human tragedy of the refugee crisis justifiably occupies our attention, the destruction of cultural heritage tells a parallel narrative.

Images from this ancient Syrian church are thus much more than museum pieces. They illuminate a people and heritage that need salvation — and not the kind of salvation found in a baptistery.

Michael Peppard is an associate professor of theology at Fordham University and the author, most recently, of “The World’s Oldest Church: Bible, Art, and Ritual at Dura-Europos, Syria.”

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When art came to the rescue: Depicting Marian doctrine

Jose Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro | CC

On the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, this series of articles looks at how the Church responded to this turbulent age by finding an artistic voice to proclaim Truth through Beauty. Each column looks at how works of art were designed to confront a challenge raised by the Reformation with the soothing and persuasive voice of art. You can find more in this series, here .

The Protestants, however, tended to view Mary’s role as a passive one. A vessel, made to receive God and then to be placed on a shelf for admiration and emulation, while the Catholics saw Mary as constantly active on our behalf. Her fiat had grown in Catholic teaching beyond a submissive yielding to divine will, into an active trust in and cooperation with God and intercession for others. In developing her thought regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Church anchored her life in two supernatural events, not explicitly found in Scripture, and therefore suspect for Protestants. One event was her Immaculate Conception — that she was conceived in the womb of her mother without the stain of original sin — and the other her bodily assumption into Heaven.

Although only recently defined as dogmas, these devotions have existed for centuries, developing through the years from the understanding of the early Church. In 1476, Pope Sixtus IV had included the Immaculate Conception in the liturgical calendar and dedicated his Sistine chapel to her Assumption. In this era, Marian imagery was evolving away from icons and into the more action-packed world of Renaissance narrative. Mary was often compared to Eve, whose sinful action had helped bring about the Fall; therefore Mary, through her active obedience, would help implement Redemption.

Although the Immaculate Conception reflected Mary as the heroic figure prepared at the beginning of time for her tremendous undertaking, art struggled to keep up with this heady, non-narrative concept, employing the likes of Leonardo da Vinci to delve into this complex theology in his Virgin of the Rocks . Michelangelo even took a crack at the subject in the Sistine chapel, by placing the Creation of Woman as the central panel of the ceiling; he underscored Mary as the New Eve, a theological notion dating back to the Church Fathers that was given its finest modern expression 300 years later by Blessed John Henry Newman .

The Counter-Reformation called on art to help clarify this teaching for the faithful, and it was this era that ultimately created what would become the definitive iconography of the Immaculate Conception.

The Church recruited the Carracci school, the artistic academy most attuned to the ideas of the Counter Reform. It was the restless, imaginative Ludovico who first endeavored to illustrate Mary of the Immaculate Conception in 1590 in the painting known as the Madonna dei Scalzi for the Bolognese Discalced Carmelites, founded by St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross 20 years earlier.

Ludovico paints Mary floating in midair – an invention of Raphael, but soon to be standard in images of both the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption. She stands on a crescent moon and is encircled by stars evoking the woman of the apocalypse in Revelation 12:1 “I saw a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head.”

Given this new imagery, Ludovico chose to show Mary with the infant Christ in her arms, keeping a more traditional iconography so as not to shock the public, and emphasizing the centrality of Christ to avoid Protestants’ accusations that Catholics held Mary in greater esteem than Jesus.

The two saints flank her to reaffirm the continuous tradition of the Immaculate Conception: St. Francis, founder of the order that tirelessly promoted the Immaculate Conception, and St. Jerome who succinctly stated, “Death by Eve, life by Mary” back in the 4th century.

Ludovico’s work was continued by one of his finest students, Guido Reni. Reni produced a great many images of both Marian doctrines, but perhaps his most beautiful effort was painted for the king of Spain. Without saints, Church doctors or the Christ child, Mary floats on a crescent moon supported by a trio of angels. More cherubs surround her as she gazes raptly toward the heavens. Her clothes retain the traditional red and blue, but the golden light that suffuses her alludes to the abundant grace bestowed on her.

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was a mere boy when Reni’s painting arrived in Madrid, bastion of the Immaculate Conception. This belief was so strongly held in the city that when in 1613, an itinerant preacher argued against the devotion, 40,000 citizens filled the streets to reclaim this singular honor of Mary. Murillo painted the subject repeatedly, and ultimately created the image we know today, which was later validated by the miraculous apparition of Mary at Rue du Bac. Mary, seen as youthful maiden untouched by age, now wears white, symbol of her purity from sin, under her blue mantle. The angels below offer up symbols of her glory. With Mary’s perfect purity (the lily) and with our prayers (the rosary), she helps us to persevere to victory (the palm) and eternal peace (the olive).

Art worked no less tirelessly on the Assumption than the Immaculate Conception. An ancient teaching, the Assumption held that Mary knew no decay but entered Heaven with her body. The lack of veneration of any bodily relics of Mary or a tradition of her resting place underscores the antiquity of this belief. The earliest version of the feast, the Dormition of the Virgin, was often illustrated with a sleeping Mary with Jesus holding a miniature white version of the Virgin in his arms. An illustrated epilogue showed Mary crowned in heaven by her Son, but in the Renaissance the Assumption began to appear discreetly, usually showing Mary as a weightless sylph floating upward amid musical angels.

Artists of the Counter-Reformation took on this subject with a little more difficulty.

In 1605, Caravaggio painted an image of the Dormition of the Virgin , this time for the Discalced Carmelites of Rome. He chose to show the lifeless body of Mary surrounded by sorrowful apostles, leaving the viewer anxiously awaiting the Assumption. The commission had asked for the scene of Mary’s death, and Caravaggio complied by stretching a heavy middle-aged body sprawled and lifeless on her deathbed. Her feet are bared and ankles exposed and she is swathed in a red dress, symbolic of her mortality. Her blue robe of grace has dimmed to gray. The eye is led down toward Mary and then further down towards the ground, where she should soon be buried. But in the upper right, unseen by the group lost in grief, a light enters the room, drawing attention to the red curtain covering the upper part of the painting. This is only the end of the act, not the end of the play. That light, supernatural in nature—as there is no window nor lantern to produce it—promises that out of the darkness of this moment will come one of the most beautiful miracles in history, the Assumption. One must have faith … and patience.

The Carmelites did not have patience with Caravaggio’s version of the scene and rejected the work. To replace it, they hired a less edgy artist, Carlo Saraceni , to repeat the commission. He shows the dormition with the apostles standing around Mary’s deathbed, but eschews the depiction of her lifeless body in favor of a Mary sitting up under the opening heavens, conflating the dormition and the assumption into a less challenging scene.

Caravaggio was probably reacting to Annibale Carracci, who had become the Roman master of the Assumption with his painting in Santa Maria del Popolo. The altarpiece of the Cerasi chapel, where Caravaggio had painted the Death of Peter and the Conversion of Saul, Carracci’s painting had greeted the pilgrims during Jubilee year 1600 with a vivid reminder of the importance of Mary in the life of the Church.

Annibale’s Mary is no waif-like creature, but a voluminous woman floating upwards. Her face radiant, Mary rises above the cavernous darkness of the tomb toward the golden light of heaven above. Her dainty bare foot points towards the viewer as if she might fly overhead while the astonished apostles look on in awe. The buoyant colors and the compressed composition underscore the glorious nature of this mystery; Caravaggio, on the other hand, ponders the fearful moment before the miracle.

As the most depicted woman in human history, Mary offered artists opportunities to expand their creative capabilities. Accompanying the Church in her developing teaching on Mary, art created proportionately fascinating images of the Queen of Heaven.

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The patriotic Virgin: How Mary’s been marshaled for religious nationalism and military campaigns

President, Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

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Dorian Llywelyn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Ever since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, analysts picking apart Vladimir Putin’s motives and messaging about the war have looked to religion for some of the answers. Putin’s nationalist vision paints Russia as a defender of traditional Christian values against a liberal, secular West.

Putin’s Russia, however, is only the latest in a centurieslong lineup of nations using religion to bolster their political ambitions. As a Jesuit priest and scholar of Catholicism , I’ve seen in my research on nationalism and religion how patriotic loyalties and religious faith easily borrow one another’s language, symbols and emotions .

Western Christianity, including Catholicism, has often been enlisted to stir up patriotic fervor in support of nationalism. Historically, one typical aspect of the Catholic approach is linking devotion to the Virgin Mary with the interests of the state and military.

The birth of a belief

An Egyptian papyrus fragment from the fourth century is the first clear evidence of Christians’ praying to the Virgin Mary . The brief prayer, which seeks Mary’s protection in times of trouble, is written in the first person plural – using language like “our” and “we” – which suggests a belief that Mary would respond to groups of people as well as individuals.

That conviction appeared to grow in the following centuries. After the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in A.D. 312, the new faith developed a close relationship with his empire, including a belief that Mary looked with particular favor on the capital city of Constantinople .

Political and religious leaders asked the Virgin for victory in battle and shelter from plagues . In A.D. 626, Constantinople was besieged by a Persian navy. Christians believed that their prayers to the Virgin destroyed the invading fleet, saving the city and its inhabitants. The Akathist hymn, which has been prayed in both the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches ever since, gives Mary the military title “Champion General” in thanks for that victory .

In the Catholic West, military successes such as European victories over the Ottoman Empire were attributed to Mary’s intervention. Her blessing has been sought on imperialist endeavors , including Spain’s conquest of the Americas .

Even today, Mary holds the title of general in the armies of Argentina and Chile , where she is considered a national patroness . The same association between Marian devotion and patriotism can be found in many Latin American countries .

National symbol

Off the battlefield, many Catholic cultures have historically felt they had a special relationship with Mary. In 1638, King Louis XIII formally dedicated France to the Virgin Mary. Popular belief interpreted the subsequent birth of the future Louis XIV as Mary’s miraculous reward, after 23 years of waiting for a male heir.

About two decades later, Polish King Jan II Kazimierz consecrated his country to Mary amid a war. Both acts reflected church and political leaders’ beliefs that their countries had a sacred mission and divine approval for their political ambitions.

When these kinds of beliefs become widespread in a society, many scholars would label them religious nationalism – though there is a long-standing debate about when affection for one’s country becomes “ nationalism .” There is widespread consensus, though, that religion is one of the most common elements of nationalism , and many nationalist projects have invoked Mary’s blessing .

Polish territory, for example, was divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria for more than a century. But Polish Catholics continued to address Mary as “ Queen of Poland .” Her title asserted the existence of the Polish people as a nation. And it implied that efforts to reestablish Poland as a sovereign country had a heavenly helper.

Similarly, in the 19th century, both Queen Victoria and the Virgin Mary were referred to in different contexts as “Queen of Ireland,” expressing two rival visions of Ireland: part of the Protestant United Kingdom, or a separate and essentially Catholic country.

Many different movements have used the figure of the Virgin to support their agendas. In colonial Mexico, the figure of Our Lady of Guadalupe, one title for Mary, was originally interpreted as being a champion of the “criollos ,” native-born inhabitants of Spanish descent. During the 1810-21 War of Mexican Independence, “ la Guadalupana ” figured on the banners of the “independista” forces. The Spanish army, meanwhile, adopted the “Virgin of Los Remedios,” another title for Mary, as their own patroness. She would later be invoked in support of Indigenous people and mestizos, people with both Indigenous and Spanish ancestry .

Mary is invoked not only by nationalist causes. Sometimes she is inspiration for countercultural or protest movements, from the pro-life cause to Latina feminists . Labor leader Cesar Chavez placed the image of Guadalupe on banners as his organization marched for farmworkers’ rights.

Mary’s future

All these uses draw on the ancient belief in Mary’s power to intervene in times of trouble. However, ideological, political and especially military ambitions and religious sentiment are a volatile mix. As the current war in Ukraine shows, allegiance to one’s nation, especially when it claims Christian inspiration, can inspire both imperialist expansionism and heroic resistance to it.

This makes a better understanding of religious nationalism urgently important, especially for the church. Twentieth- and 21st-century popes have condemned aggressive nationalism but have not defined it clearly.

In cultures that are largely secularized, appeals for Mary’s protection or claims that she has a special relationship with any one nation are now likely to seem archaic, outlandish or sectarian. But what I know of both Marian devotion and national identity has convinced me that ancient patterns often survive and reassert themselves in new times and places.

Even where the practice of Catholicism is in decline, Mary’s cultural significance remains strong. And religion continues to be a regular element of many nationalist agendas .

My guess is that we have not seen the last of the warrior Virgin.

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The Unexpected Links Between the Virgin Mary & Goddess Athena

Divine virgin mothers, bearers of holy wisdom, symbols of protection worshipped on the same grounds. The links between the Virgin Mary and Athena are too many to ignore.

On the Greek island of Skopelos, visitors may come across a tiny church that perhaps holds one of Greece’s greatest religious mysteries. That is the church of Panagia Polemistra (Our Lady Warrior), a small single-aisle basilica built on the ruins of an ancient temple from the sixth century BCE. The ancient temple was once dedicated to no other than the goddess Athena. Similarly, in other churches across Greece, mystifying religious artifacts perplex the visitors. Icons of the Virgin Mary stopping a group of soldiers, sometimes clutching a sword, always casting a stern gaze. What secrets could these representations of Mary reveal about religious syncretism in Greece?

Virgin Mary and the “Great Mother” Archetype

In early Christianity, Mary was primarily venerated as a symbol of maternal love due to her role as the mother of Jesus. This is reflected in texts such as the apocryphal Gospel of James , which presents the Mother of God as a humble and pious woman. Mary’s role soon expanded to include symbolism related to her Assumption into heaven, her Immaculate Conception, and her perpetual virginity. These beliefs contributed to her perception as a symbol of purity, forgiveness, compassion, and maternal care for all humanity.

It comes as no surprise that the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung considered the Virgin Mary as a representation of the “Great Mother” archetype. In the chapter “ Four Archetypes ” from the Collected Works of C.G. Jung , Mary is included in the same category as all goddesses of fertility and personifications of the Earth. Therefore, if she were to be associated with any ancient Greek deity, this would be Demeter , goddess of fertility and agriculture and mother of Persephone .

For example, the church of Panagia Mesosporitissa (Our Lady of Sowing) in the Greek city of Eleusis is built in close proximity to the city’s archaeological site. In the same exact area where ancient Greeks held the secret rites to Demeter and Kore (Persephone), Christian Greeks dedicated a church to the Virgin Mary.

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Every year, on the 21st of November, churchgoers celebrate the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple by cooking and distributing “polysporia”. This dish contains boiled legumes, wheat, pomegranate, and raisins, and it can be traced back to pre-Christian times. In 2019, the Greek Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, publicly described this tradition as “a revival of a corresponding tradition of antiquity”.

“Our Lady of Sowing” is not the only description of Mary. It is common for Greek Orthodox saints and prophets to carry specific epithets that describe a particular characteristic they possess. In Greek Orthodox Christianity, the most profound epithet for Mary is the one of “Ypermahos Stratigos” (Invincible General). This representation of Mary as a strong military commander is diametrically opposed to that of the motherly figure. Could this indicate that the Virgin Mary is a continuation of the goddess Athena?

Goddess Athena in Greek Polytheism

Athena was the Greek goddess of crafts, wisdom, and strategy and the Greek equivalent of the Roman Minerva . Her main two symbols were the owl and the olive tree, and she was always portrayed in armor. According to Greek Mythology, she had emerged from Zeus’s head, and her main role was to deliver words of wisdom into people’s minds. The goddess inspired generals, philosophers, politicians, and heroes to think clearly and logically.

Although she was often associated with warfare, Athena despised violence for the sake of violence. Contrary to the hot-headed god of war, Ares , she motivated her devotees to participate in just wars . The ancient Greek speech writer Lysias described such wars as the defense of a land that rightfully belongs to a group of people.

“ Now in many ways it was natural to our ancestors, moved by a single resolve, to fight the battles of justice: for the very beginning of their life was just. They had not been collected, like most nations, from every quarter, and had not settled in a foreign land after driving out its people: they were born of the soil, and possessed in one and the same country their mother and their fatherland.” (Lysias , Funeral Oration 2.17 )

Athena was also a patroness and protector of cities, particularly of Athens. According to an ancient myth , Athena had competed against Poseidon, god of the seas, for the possession of the city. After spawning the first olive tree, the Athenians selected her as their patroness. The most astounding temple on the Acropolis hill was dedicated to Athena, and it is no other than the Parthenon (Temple of the Virgin Goddess). As the temple’s name suggests, the Greek goddess remained unmarried and a virgin, although she raised a boy as her own.

Goddess Athena was one of the most important deities in the ancient Greek pantheon. Although at first glance, she appears to possess different characteristics from Mary, both figures stand as symbols of divine virginity, wisdom, and strategy.

Similarities Between Virgin Mary and Athena

1. divine virginity & motherhood.

The perpetual virginity of Mary is a Christian doctrine that Mary was a virgin before, during, and after the birth of Christ. In Greek Orthodoxy, Mary is often called “ Aeiparthenos ” (ever-virgin). This doctrine asserts that Mary remained a virgin throughout her life, preserving her virginity as a symbol of her purity and sinless nature.

Similarly, the goddess Athena was one of the virgin goddesses of antiquity . One of her epithets was “Parthenos” (Virgin), and her most astounding temple was no other than the Parthenon on the Acropolis Hill . Athena also had the role of enforcing sexual modesty. In the myth of Medusa , as we know it from Ovid, the goddess transforms a woman into a serpentine monster because she lost her virginity in her temple. Although Medusa was raped by Poseidon , the act was still considered a hybris towards the goddess.

Despite their virgin nature, both Mary and Athena experienced motherhood. From Luke (1:26-38), we know that angel Gabriel visited Mary to announce that she would conceive a son by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Annunciation of the Lord, as it is called, resulted in the incarnation of Christ. Similarly, Athena experienced motherhood after Hephaestus attempted to have intimate relations with her. Although Athena rejected the god, the attempt resulted in the birth of a young boy named Erichthonius out of the Earth. The goddess decided to take care of the boy in secret.

2. Holy Wisdom

Another common characteristic between goddess Athena and the Virgin Mary is their wise nature. Athena was the guide of wise men and wisdom seekers (philosophers). One of her favorite heroes, whom she helped in Greek mythology, was Odysseus . That is because the king of Ithaca was not only brave but also cunning. According to Homer, he was the one who came up with the idea of the Trojan Horse, a plan that impressed the goddess.

Similarly, Mary is often associated with the concept of Holy Wisdom (Sophia) and the incarnation of the divine logos. In Greek Orthodoxy, Mary is the bearer of Sophia (the Greek word for “wisdom”) or rather Hagia (Holy) Sophia, to be precise.

“ The Lord himself created Wisdom; he saw her and recognized her value, and so he filled everything he made with Wisdom .” ( Sirach 1:9 )

If the name Hagia Sophia sounds familiar, that is because of the Byzantine architectural wonder with the same name . The former cathedral of Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, was built to venerate Mary as the bearer of divine wisdom and logos. Moreover, the Akathist — a Byzantine hymn from the seventh century CE — includes a kontakion addressing the Mother of God as the bearer of divine wisdom and logos. The Virgin Mary is described as a “vessel of God’s wisdom”, a “breaker of the webs of the Athenians’ logic” and a “drawer of many from the abyss of ignorance”.

3. Symbols of Power, Strategy, and Protection

Interestingly enough, the Akathist also includes a kontakion addressing the Mother of God as the “Ypermahos Strattigos” (Invincible General) and “savior of Constantinople”.

“ O Invincible General, we your faithful inscribe to you the prize of victory as gratitude for being rescued from calamit., O Theotokos (Mother of God). But since you have invincible power, free us from all kinds of perils so that we may cry out to you: Rejoice, O Bride unwedded.”

In Greek Christian tradition, the Virgin Mary is often depicted as a patroness and protector of a city, just like Athena. For example, it is documented that in the battle of Constantinople in 626 , the Virgin Mary caused the Avars and their Persian allies to flee. Similar stories of Mary protecting a city -usually with a predominant Christian Orthodox population- have been heard throughout the years. One of the most recent reports is from World War II, when German tanks approached the Greek town of Orchomenos. According to people’s accounts, the Virgin Mary reportedly stopped the tanks from entering the town — a belief that is shared by Greeks and Germans alike.

Moreover, many of Mary’s epithets show her connection to Athena. For example, on the island of Skopelos in the Aegean Sea, there is a small church dedicated to Panagia Polemistra (Our Lady Warrior). The ancient temple that preceded the Christian church was built in the sixth century BCE and was reportedly dedicated to no other than Athena. It is worth mentioning that, similarly to Athena, the Virgin Mary does not seem to lead “unjust wars”. Her main role is to assist in defending and protecting a land, not to cause destructive wars.

Lastly, another proof of Mary’s strategic powers is the date chosen for the Greek Independence Day. On the 25th of March, Greeks celebrate both their national revolution and the Feast of the Annunciation (Lady Day).

Virgin Mary & Athena: Religious Syncretism in Greece

The connections between Mary — mainly in Christian Orthodoxy — and Athena are countless. Both religious figures are symbols of divine virginity, wisdom, and strategy; sometimes, their temples even share the same grounds. This unorthodox connection may result from syncretism, a blending of different beliefs, practices, and cultures into a unified whole. This phenomenon occurs when cultures come into contact, leading to the adoption and integration of elements from one culture into another.

The transition from paganism to Christianity was very gradual. Already since the Hellenistic expansion, an influx of mystic religions from the East had influenced Greek culture. Finally, when Apostle Paul delivered his Aeropagus sermon in Athens, he made sure to bridge any cultural gaps in the presentation of the gospel .

“ For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you .” (Paul Addresses the Areopagus)

After the official adoption of Christianity, the Byzantine Empire was initially very tolerant towards paganism. By the closing of the Athenian Academy in 529 CE, Christianity had already absorbed countless elements from the ancient Greek religion. Like Athena’s and Demeter’s temples in Skopelos and Eleusis, many pagan temples were transformed into  Christian churches .

The signs of the continuation of Greek heritage from antiquity to modernity are all around us. We just need to pay close attention. Greeks may not be worshipping Athena anymore — at least to a great extent — however, they venerate a Virgin Mary different from the others; a stern-looking Mary who whispers words of wisdom and is there to fight alongside them when they are under attack.

Jung’s Most Controversial Idea: What is the Collective Unconscious?

By Marialena Perpiraki MSc. Media & Convergence, BA Communication, Media & Culture Marialena is a journalist and content writer with an interest in comparative mythology and folklore. She holds a BA in Communications, Media & Culture from Panteion University of Athens and an MSc. in Media & Convergence Management from AAU, Austria. She is the creator of the cross-media platform Helinika.

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What made this representation of the Virgin Mary by Giotto revolutionary?

The Madonna has a surprisingly human appearance.

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Add your answer:

A representation of the Virgin Mary usually with infant Jesus?

What is the representation of christ supported by the virgin mary.

The icon is called the 'Pieta,' because Mary is mourning the Death of her Son.

What is a representation of the VIrgin Mary usually with the infant Jesus?

It would be called the Madonna or Madonna with child.

What made this representation of the Virgin Mary revolution?

The maddona has a surprisingly human appearance.

Why is the representation of the Virgin Mary usually with the infant Jesus?

Because she is best known for Giving Birth the Lord Jesus at Bethlehem.

What is the full lineage of the Virgin Mary Is Mohammad in the lineage of the Virgin Mary?

No, Mohammad is not in the lineage of the Virgin Mary. The Virgin Mary is a descendent of King David.

Is Virgin Mary single?

No, Virgin Mary is not single.

Have you seen the Virgin Mary?

Personally, no, I have not seen the Virgin Mary.

Where is it written Mary was not a virgin?

There is nothing in scripture stating Mary was not a virgin.

Does Virgin Mary have children?

Yes, Virgin Mary has 1 kids

Does Virgin Mary have kids?

How many kids does virgin mary have.

Virgin Mary has 1 child

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