In his impressive recent program 'This Is Civilisation,' Matthew Collins explored the different impacts the Greek and Christian religions had on art. The ancient Greeks were obsessed with physical perfection. Their gods and goddesses were supermodels; essentially like us but much more beautiful. This civilisation found both aesthetic and spiritual bliss in a well-proportioned statue of a naked boy. A notion which vanished when Christianity conquered Europe, Collins argued. Not only were statues of the gods condemned as idolatry, the human form itself became problematic. The body was seen as transient, it was the source of sin. So much so that the central image of Christianity became a body pierced and broken so that the spirit could live forever.
I knew which picture Collins would show to illustrate art's dramatic change of direction. There have been thousands of Jesus dying on the cross, but one still stands out. Grünewald, of course. His ghastly Crucifixion which is slapped across the Isenheim Altar. Jesus is twisted unnaturally on the cross, head slumped. His outstretched arms are as thin as twigs, his pierced skin already the colour of rotting flesh. Grünewald embraced the cruellest side of Christianity and became immortal as a result. His altarpiece is frequently used to show the gloom of the Middle Ages, just as Texas Chainsaw Massacre epitomises the 'video nasty' boom of the 1980's; though Crucifixion is more horrific than any of Leatherface's antics.
The gruesome Grünewald is only one part of Christian art, however. And the crucifixion is only one pole of the Jesus story. More artists clustered around the other, the one we are preparing to commemorate: his birth. Here we get not a hatred of the human form but a celebration of it. And with this comes a joyous representation of humanity itself. This happened most vividly in the Renaissance paintings. The Renaissance, of course, was a rediscovery of classical methods and ideals. And the body became beautiful again. More importantly it became living and three dimensional, after the flat mannequins of the Middle Ages. This was partly because of the development of scientific techniques and observation, a tendency which Leonardo da Vinci perhaps took to excess. It was also because of the notion that humans and human relations were worthy subjects of art.
Classical themes also became fashionable again. Such paintings were always a subsection of the Renaissance, though, and often a farcical one. They often feel like the old legends being used as an excuse to create images which would otherwise get the painter excommunicated. Want to show an orgy? Just call it a Feast of Bacchus. Violent pornography or bestiality more your fancy? Then resurrect the Rape of the Sabine Women or Jupiter getting his end off. Titian alone got away with this sort of thing and he only occasionally. The bulk of the Renaissance, and certainly the majority of its masterpieces, were Christian. Partly this was because of the piper's paymasters. Many pieces were commissioned by either Popes or Italian dukes wanting to suck up to Popes. But many artists were deeply religious too, sometimes – especially in Michelangelo's case – taking their devotion to the point of insanity.
So crucifixions dominate, and nativities and pietas and ascensions. There was also another popular theme. Christ as a toddler or a young boy with his mother. This is surprising because of its apparent irrelevance to Church dogma. Jesus rather drops out of the Bible in between his escape from Herod and his reappearance as a smart alec teen showing off in the Temple. Yet many Renaissance artists tried to fill in these lost years. The sheer variety of their images gives us a clue why. Michelangelo shows a muscular Mary leading The Holy Family, reaching up to grab her son. Caravaggio's Virgin and Child With St Anne has Christ helping his mother tramp on a serpent – the symbolic resisting of temptation turned into a nursery game. Raphael's Madonna of the Chair is all protective love, arms wrapped around her rather chubby son as she glares at us suspiciously. Again, the titles of some of these works seem to be a cloak. The images are simply the painters' statements about motherhood, maybe based on memories of their own childhood or observations of their wives. It is worth mentioning that the pictures are filled with love and devotion. The religious settings were probably useful here as well; such emotions are rarely fashionable in art otherwise.
Leonardo da Vinci's The Virgin of the Rocks is from this tradition. It has a more mysterious feel than many. The golden light which illuminates his characters and the subtlety of his shadows give it a touch of the divine. The darkness of much of the background, contrasting with a bright glow peeking through the rocks in the distance, hint of a grotto cut off from the rest of the world. Otherwise it is a realistic, if slightly stylised, representation of a family at rest.
One puzzling element, distancing it from many Virgin-and-child pictures, is that there are in fact two children. There is no obvious explanation why or even which one is Jesus. Conceivably the other could belong to the girl on the right. She has the look of a servant or a nanny, however. Da Vinci's careful arrangement of figures leaves her on the fringes; and states that the Virgin is the mother of both children. Her arm rests on the shoulders of the praying infant. Her gaze is directed towards the other while a cautioning hand sneaks towards him. This Madonna is much less protective than Raphael's. Leaning against a rock, her expression is as serene as the sunlight. Yet she emanates a calm authority over both children and seems capable of bundling them both up in an instant.
The actions of the children supply the only overtly religious details. One is down on one knee to pray. The other, placed by the water's edge, lifts a hand to bless him. Perhaps the latter is John, rehearsing the moment in later life when he will baptise his cousin. Their relationship is also suggested by Jesus' slightly higher vantage point, a sign of superiority. If so, however, it feels like an unconscious forecast. The children simply seem to be playing, mimicking the actions of adults. They also have the clumsiness of infants. Both appear to be in danger of unbalancing, the prayer not entirely secure on his rock and the blesser leaning rather too far over the water. You can understand why their mother is keeping a close eye on them both.
And the gaze keeps returning to her. She is placed almost dead centre of the canvas. And she rears over the other figures, her head the apex of one of da Vinci's triangular compositions. Not in the way Parmigianino's ridiculous Madonna of the Long Neck does, but in an arrangement which looks both natural and inevitable. This is another common feature of Virgin-and-child pictures. Mary's authority is total. Jesus may be the son of God but, at this stage, he is totally dependent on his mother. Meanwhile poor, divinely cuckolded Joseph barely features. Michelangelo puts him in the background and turns him into an old greybeard to emphasise his weakness. Da Vinci simply excludes him, replacing him with a servant girl.
The Virgin of the Rocks is so powerful because it works on two levels. The lighting and setting give it a mythical aura whilst the details are entirely realistic. In this it follows one a strand of Christianity especially strong in fifteenth century Italy – the cult of the Madonna. An ordinary woman worshipped because of her status as a mother. This was effectively an updating of the ancient tradition of the Mother Goddess – a figure somewhat terrifying but also benevolent and loving. The urge has survived because of our memories of the time when our own mothers seemed to be all-powerful beings who could guard us from anything.
Matthew Collins was partly right. When the Christian artists showed naked flesh, at least outside the classical legends, they tended to punish it. The blinded Samson blundering around the temple, a saint stretched out on a rack, Jesus dying on his cross. Only babies could do full-frontal nudity and survive. The Mother Goddess lost her multiple breasts and gained a healthy set of clothes. The Divine Conception reflects the new squeamishness towards sex – while also continuing the tradition of Jupiter's dubious 'seductions' – particularly when practiced by our own mothers and fathers. But this doesn't mean the human form itself was condemned. The opposite actually happened. The divine became humanised. Jesus was turned into a chubby, clumsy toddler dependent on his mother's protection. And religious art became a study of personal relations, rather than just the search for a perfect set of pecs.
I knew which picture Collins would show to illustrate art's dramatic change of direction. There have been thousands of Jesus dying on the cross, but one still stands out. Grünewald, of course. His ghastly Crucifixion which is slapped across the Isenheim Altar. Jesus is twisted unnaturally on the cross, head slumped. His outstretched arms are as thin as twigs, his pierced skin already the colour of rotting flesh. Grünewald embraced the cruellest side of Christianity and became immortal as a result. His altarpiece is frequently used to show the gloom of the Middle Ages, just as Texas Chainsaw Massacre epitomises the 'video nasty' boom of the 1980's; though Crucifixion is more horrific than any of Leatherface's antics.
The gruesome Grünewald is only one part of Christian art, however. And the crucifixion is only one pole of the Jesus story. More artists clustered around the other, the one we are preparing to commemorate: his birth. Here we get not a hatred of the human form but a celebration of it. And with this comes a joyous representation of humanity itself. This happened most vividly in the Renaissance paintings. The Renaissance, of course, was a rediscovery of classical methods and ideals. And the body became beautiful again. More importantly it became living and three dimensional, after the flat mannequins of the Middle Ages. This was partly because of the development of scientific techniques and observation, a tendency which Leonardo da Vinci perhaps took to excess. It was also because of the notion that humans and human relations were worthy subjects of art.
Classical themes also became fashionable again. Such paintings were always a subsection of the Renaissance, though, and often a farcical one. They often feel like the old legends being used as an excuse to create images which would otherwise get the painter excommunicated. Want to show an orgy? Just call it a Feast of Bacchus. Violent pornography or bestiality more your fancy? Then resurrect the Rape of the Sabine Women or Jupiter getting his end off. Titian alone got away with this sort of thing and he only occasionally. The bulk of the Renaissance, and certainly the majority of its masterpieces, were Christian. Partly this was because of the piper's paymasters. Many pieces were commissioned by either Popes or Italian dukes wanting to suck up to Popes. But many artists were deeply religious too, sometimes – especially in Michelangelo's case – taking their devotion to the point of insanity.
So crucifixions dominate, and nativities and pietas and ascensions. There was also another popular theme. Christ as a toddler or a young boy with his mother. This is surprising because of its apparent irrelevance to Church dogma. Jesus rather drops out of the Bible in between his escape from Herod and his reappearance as a smart alec teen showing off in the Temple. Yet many Renaissance artists tried to fill in these lost years. The sheer variety of their images gives us a clue why. Michelangelo shows a muscular Mary leading The Holy Family, reaching up to grab her son. Caravaggio's Virgin and Child With St Anne has Christ helping his mother tramp on a serpent – the symbolic resisting of temptation turned into a nursery game. Raphael's Madonna of the Chair is all protective love, arms wrapped around her rather chubby son as she glares at us suspiciously. Again, the titles of some of these works seem to be a cloak. The images are simply the painters' statements about motherhood, maybe based on memories of their own childhood or observations of their wives. It is worth mentioning that the pictures are filled with love and devotion. The religious settings were probably useful here as well; such emotions are rarely fashionable in art otherwise.
Leonardo da Vinci's The Virgin of the Rocks is from this tradition. It has a more mysterious feel than many. The golden light which illuminates his characters and the subtlety of his shadows give it a touch of the divine. The darkness of much of the background, contrasting with a bright glow peeking through the rocks in the distance, hint of a grotto cut off from the rest of the world. Otherwise it is a realistic, if slightly stylised, representation of a family at rest.
One puzzling element, distancing it from many Virgin-and-child pictures, is that there are in fact two children. There is no obvious explanation why or even which one is Jesus. Conceivably the other could belong to the girl on the right. She has the look of a servant or a nanny, however. Da Vinci's careful arrangement of figures leaves her on the fringes; and states that the Virgin is the mother of both children. Her arm rests on the shoulders of the praying infant. Her gaze is directed towards the other while a cautioning hand sneaks towards him. This Madonna is much less protective than Raphael's. Leaning against a rock, her expression is as serene as the sunlight. Yet she emanates a calm authority over both children and seems capable of bundling them both up in an instant.
The actions of the children supply the only overtly religious details. One is down on one knee to pray. The other, placed by the water's edge, lifts a hand to bless him. Perhaps the latter is John, rehearsing the moment in later life when he will baptise his cousin. Their relationship is also suggested by Jesus' slightly higher vantage point, a sign of superiority. If so, however, it feels like an unconscious forecast. The children simply seem to be playing, mimicking the actions of adults. They also have the clumsiness of infants. Both appear to be in danger of unbalancing, the prayer not entirely secure on his rock and the blesser leaning rather too far over the water. You can understand why their mother is keeping a close eye on them both.
And the gaze keeps returning to her. She is placed almost dead centre of the canvas. And she rears over the other figures, her head the apex of one of da Vinci's triangular compositions. Not in the way Parmigianino's ridiculous Madonna of the Long Neck does, but in an arrangement which looks both natural and inevitable. This is another common feature of Virgin-and-child pictures. Mary's authority is total. Jesus may be the son of God but, at this stage, he is totally dependent on his mother. Meanwhile poor, divinely cuckolded Joseph barely features. Michelangelo puts him in the background and turns him into an old greybeard to emphasise his weakness. Da Vinci simply excludes him, replacing him with a servant girl.
The Virgin of the Rocks is so powerful because it works on two levels. The lighting and setting give it a mythical aura whilst the details are entirely realistic. In this it follows one a strand of Christianity especially strong in fifteenth century Italy – the cult of the Madonna. An ordinary woman worshipped because of her status as a mother. This was effectively an updating of the ancient tradition of the Mother Goddess – a figure somewhat terrifying but also benevolent and loving. The urge has survived because of our memories of the time when our own mothers seemed to be all-powerful beings who could guard us from anything.
Matthew Collins was partly right. When the Christian artists showed naked flesh, at least outside the classical legends, they tended to punish it. The blinded Samson blundering around the temple, a saint stretched out on a rack, Jesus dying on his cross. Only babies could do full-frontal nudity and survive. The Mother Goddess lost her multiple breasts and gained a healthy set of clothes. The Divine Conception reflects the new squeamishness towards sex – while also continuing the tradition of Jupiter's dubious 'seductions' – particularly when practiced by our own mothers and fathers. But this doesn't mean the human form itself was condemned. The opposite actually happened. The divine became humanised. Jesus was turned into a chubby, clumsy toddler dependent on his mother's protection. And religious art became a study of personal relations, rather than just the search for a perfect set of pecs.
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