Life of the Virgin

The Marriage of the Virgin by Giotto (Scrovegni Chapel).
Crucifixion, Descent from the Cross, Lamentation of Christ, Betrayal of Christ, Pilate washing his hands, Christ bearing the Cross, Presentation of Christ in the Temple, Finding in the Temple, from a 15th-century Book of Hours

The Life of the Virgin, showing narrative scenes from the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a common subject for pictorial cycles in Christian art, often complementing, or forming part of, a cycle on the Life of Christ. In both cases the number of scenes shown varies greatly with the space available. Works may be in any medium: frescoed church walls and series of old master prints have many of the fullest cycles, but panel painting, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, tapestries, stone sculptures and ivory carvings have many examples.

Scenes shown

The Life of the Virgin sometimes merges into a cycle of the Life of Christ, sometimes includes scenes from the Passion of Christ, but often jumps from the childhood of Christ to the Death of the Virgin. The Finding in the Temple, the last episode in the childhood of Christ, often ends the cycle.

Important examples whose scenes are listed in the table below, include those in the Tornabuoni Chapel by Domenico Ghirlandaio and his workshop between 1485 and 1490, the Scrovegni Chapel by Giotto, completed about 1305, and the Maestà by Duccio completed in 1308. The important and extended Late Byzantine mosaic cycle of the Chora Church (early 14th century; see Gallery) shows some differences between East and West—the First seven steps of the Virgin were celebrated by an Orthodox feast day—but the 16 scenes taken to reach a point before the Visitation are similar to the 15 taken in Giotto's near-contemporary cycle. When the Chora cycle resumes, it has become part of the Life of Christ beginning with his Incarnation, as has Giotto's and many Western examples. The Giotto cycle is very full at 26 scenes, but in a small ivory only two scenes may be shown. The commonest pair in such a case is the Annunciation and the Nativity of Jesus, although there were times when the Coronation of the Virgin might displace one of these.

The Tornabuoni Chapel cycle has nine scenes (described more fully at that article). In this case, as very often, other scenes, such as the Visitation, including Mary are contained in the complementary cycle of the Life of St John the Baptist on the walls. A Life of Christ has many more scenes that overlap with the Life of Mary, as the Scrovegni Chapel demonstrates. Albrecht Dürer produced a highly popular and influential series of 19 scenes in woodcut.[1]

Hans Memling's so-called Seven Joys of the Virgin—in fact this is a later title for a Life of the Virgin cycle on a single panel. Altogether 25 scenes, not all involving the Virgin, are depicted. 1480, Alte Pinakothek, Munich[2]

The total number of scenes was potentially very large up to the early Gothic period; Lafontaine-Dosogne, a leading authority, lists a total of 53 scenes before the Annunciation alone that occur in the art of the West, although only a single example (a 13th-century illuminated manuscript from Germany) containing all of these survives, and very possibly few others ever existed. Seventeen of these scenes preceded the Birth of the Virgin.[3] These apocryphal scenes became much more restricted in the later Middle Ages.

Certain events from the Life were celebrated as feasts by the Church, and others were not; this greatly affected the frequency with which they were depicted. Other Marian devotional practices affected the length and composition of cycles; Books of Hours often had eight scenes to go with the eight sections of the text of the Hours of the Virgin. The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin, the Seven Joys of the Virgin and the 15 sections of the Rosary also influenced selection of scenes,[4] for example in the standardised illustrations for the Speculum Humanae Salvationis. Theological developments also influenced selection, especially those concerning the Death of the Virgin and the Assumption, with the latter gradually replacing the former in the West.

Table of scenes

The table below shows whether a scene was the subject of a feast-day in the Western church, and gives the contents of the cycles (described above and below) by: Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel, a typical Book of hours,[5] the Hours of Catherine of Cleves,[6] the cycle of the "Master of the Louvre Life of the Virgin",[7] Ghirlandajo's Tornabuoni Chapel cycle, and the print cycles of Israhel van Meckenem and Albrecht Dürer.

Scene Feast? Giotto Bk of Hrs C of C Louvre Ghirla. Israhel Dürer
Expulsion of/Annunciation to Joachim Both Ann Ann Exp Exp Both
Joachim and Anne Meeting at the Golden Gate Yes Yes Yes Yes
Nativity of Mary Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Presentation of Mary Yes Yes Yes Two Yes Yes
Marriage of the Virgin Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Annunciation Yes Yes Yes Yes Missing? Yes Yes Yes
Visitation Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Nativity of Jesus Yes Combined Yes Combined Yes Combined Combined
Announcement to the Shepherds Yes Yes
Adoration of the Magi Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Circumcision of Christ Yes Yes Yes
Presentation of Jesus at the Temple Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Flight into Egypt Yes Yes, and/or
alternative		 Yes Yes Yes, plus Rest
Massacre of the Innocents Yes Yes Yes Yes
Finding in the Temple Yes Yes Yes Yes
Christ taking leave of his Mother Yes
Crucifixion of Jesus Yes Yes
Ascension of Jesus Yes Yes
Pentecost Yes Yes
Death of the Virgin Yes Yes Combined Yes
Assumption of Mary Yes Yes Yes
Coronation of the Virgin Yes Yes Yes
Other Many 4 1 1
Total 16 8 15 12 9 11 19
Death of the Virgin, Hugo van der Goes, ca. 1480

The sample above is correct in suggesting that the Annunciation and the Nativity were the only indispensable scenes; the Louvre cycle probably came from an altarpiece with a missing Annunciation as its main panel. The Nativity is always represented, but this may be done by the Nativity itself, the Adoration of the Shepherds, or the Adoration of the Magi – or by a combination of these three. Although the eight scenes for Books of Hours were the standard selection, followed for example by the two examples described by Robert Calkins,[8] it will be noticed that the much longer cycle in the "Hours of Catherine of Cleves" only overlaps with the standard scheme for three scenes. Ghirlandajo has large rectangular spaces to fill, and avoids scenes with only a few participants (and with no opportunity for showy costumes), except for the Annunciation. Christ taking leave of his Mother was a subject new in the 14th century, and only popular from the 15th.

History

The depiction of scenes from the life of the Virgin goes back to almost the earliest days of Christian art; a scene from the church at Dura Europas of about 250 has been interpreted as a procession of Virgins accompanying Mary to the Temple.[9] Early cycles tend to include more scenes and details from the apocryphal Gospels, including the story of Mary's parents, Saint Anne and Joachim, before her birth. The influence of these stories never disappeared entirely, partly because the canonical Gospels give few details of Mary's life before and after the years around the birth of Jesus. In the West the Pseudo-Matthew was the dominant apocryphal source; slightly different versions, all equally deriving from the Protoevangelium of James, were preferred in the East.[10]

The Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary and the Virgin of the Rosary, a Rosary-based cycle.

Cycles of the Life of Mary were less frequent in the West than the East until the Gothic period. The cycle of the Nativity in the tympanum of the right portal of Chartres Cathedral is the earliest Western monumental cycle to appear under a large enthroned Virgin and Child. Such cycles continued to appear in prominent positions, gradually becoming less common than scenes of the Passion of Christ.[11] The evolution during the 13th century of the illuminated Book of hours gave another important location for cycles, as did the gradual development of more sophisticated altarpieces for the Lady Chapel, or at least a side-altar, which all large churches had.

With the arrival of the old master print, series of the Life were popular, and were often among the most ambitious works of printmaking artists. Martin Schongauer's Death of the Virgin was one of his most influential works, adapted into painting by a host of artists in Germany and beyond. Schongauer apparently planned a large series, but only four scenes were produced (ca 1470–75).[12] Israhel van Meckenem's series of 12 scenes (ca 1490–1500),[13] and Francesco Rosselli's series, which followed the subjects of the Mysteries of the Rosary,[14] were the most important other 15th century examples. Dürer largely eclipsed these at the beginning of the 16th century with his cycle, his Death of the Virgin (1510) essentially following Schongauer's composition.

With the decline of the illuminated manuscript and the advent of larger paintings and the single-subject altarpiece, cycles became less important in art, except in print form, but painted cycles by no means died out. A cycle of 16 fairly large paintings by Luca Giordano of about 1688 hung in the Queen of Spain's bedroom in Madrid in the 18th century,[15] and many cycles were painted for cathedrals and other large buildings. After the decrees of the Council of Trent in 1563, many of the apocryphal scenes, and late medieval introductions like the Swoon of the Virgin were attacked by writers like Molanus and Cardinal Federigo Borromeo.

Gallery

  1. ^ This detail is rare outside Parisian ivories of this period, but the whole composition of this triptych is very closely followed in many works of similar date (e.g. Thompson Collection, Ottawa)

See also

Notes

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  1. ↑ Probably between 1500 and 1504. Kurth: 27
  2. ↑ Alte Pinakotek, Munich; (Summary Catalogue – various authors), pp. 348–51, 1986, Edition Lipp, ISBN 3-87490-701-5
  3. ↑ Cartlidge and Elliott discuss the composition of cycles at length, with tables pp. 29–32 listing the 53 scenes, after Lafontaine-Dosogne, and the equivalent Eastern cycle.
  4. ↑ Schiller: I,125
  5. ↑ Harthan, p.28
  6. ↑ Plummer, Plates 1–15.
  7. ↑ An unknown Venetian master of ca. 1480. DES SCENES DE LA VIE DE LA VIERGE Joconde database
  8. ↑ Calkins, Robert G. Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages, pp. 310–313, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1983.
  9. ↑ Cartlidge and Elliott:36, picture p.34
  10. ↑ Cartlidge and Elliott:32 – they discuss the role of the Apocrypha throughout their chapter on Mary
  11. ↑ Schiller: I 31–32
  12. ↑ Shestack:no.s 38–41
  13. ↑ Shestack:no.s 216–227
  14. ↑ Oberhuber, Konrad in: Jay A. Levinson (ed.) Early Italian Engravings from the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington (Catalogue),p.48ff, 1973, LOC 7379624
  15. ↑ Louvre website

References

Further reading

External links

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