The Madonna in Western Painting

This survey is an attempt at synthesis. The comprehensive review of a great theme in art is almost certainly bound to reveal this theme in a new light no matter how familiar the principal episodes associated with it may be. The author has set himself the task of helping the average man of today, and especially the newcomer interested in the pictorial art of past centuries, to identify by himself the subjects of works of art, representing scenes or episodes from the life of the Virgin Mary, and to recognize the main participants in them, this being indispensable for a deeper understanding of such works. For this purpose it is necessary to outline the various rules observed in the composition of images and scene, to inquire into the literary and traditional sources on which they are based, and to follow up the changes which the modes of representation have undergone under the impact of historical circumstances and changing ways of interpretation. In the language of the art historian this means to trace the evolution of their iconography. In practice, it amounts to seeing a pictorial work with the eyes of its contemporaries, refracted through their world outlook and mentality- and this is by far the greatest difficult in communicating with a work of art, remote in time and space. But it is indispensable for the real appreciation of the enduring spiritual and aesthetic values of past epochs, embedded in these works.