Western Marian Art

Christian Art first developed in the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity. The West followed a little later, but unlike the East where sacred Art stayed dominated by the icon, Art in the West kept diversifying constantly, influenced by various cultural traditions and the development of Western thought.

The first traces of Western Christian Art are found in the Roman catacombs, dug by the Christians fleeing imperial persecutions. They decorated their underground walls with frescoes of biblical scenes (1). On the other hand, several artistic items of Eastern origin were transferred to Europe by travellers returning home from the Holy Land. They would bring back, among other things, decorated ampoules, filled with water from Jerusalem or other holy places, and small decorative plaques of ivory. The very first known icons arrived in southern Italy around the end of the 13th century.

With the year 1000, came new developments in the West

Meanwhile, a early as 1000 A.D., Romanesque Art emerged in the field of architecture with the building of monasteries and churches filled with illuminated manuscripts, reliefs and sculptures often depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary. The cathedrals of Vezelay and Marmoutier in France, or Saint Ambrose in Milan, are some examples of Romanesque masterpieces.

At this period Marian statuary began to spread (in France for instance) and Black Virgins, whose origin still remains obscure, also became very numerous. In the 12th century, the Marian Gothic appeared with statues, such as the Madonna and Child of Notre-Dame of Paris, and especially developed in Germany with the "beautiful Madonna". Gothic Art was born, first sober, then growing in complexity in the 13th and 14th centuries and becoming Flamboyant.  At this time the stained-glass window was developed.

The Art of the Renaissance was a spiritual turning point

In the 16th century, the Renaissance and humanism began, first in Italy then in the rest of Europe. The image of the Virgin took on more human traits and moved closer to human canons of beauty. Fra Angelico painted much interiorized Virgins while Philippo Lippi preferred to depict exterior beauty and he made the Virgin look like a princess of the Renaissance...

After the "Quattrocento a l'italienne", there was a noted reaction against the excesses of humanism; it was the time of the Counter Reformation (mid 17th century) and of Baroque Art. The Virgin was seen more as the Queen of Heaven, an imposing woman, between Heaven and earth, awe-inspiring, set on a pedestal or a column, as in Munich.

Art in the 19th century displayed a riot of styles as diverse as the Virgins of Ingres for example (where the perfection of line creates a certain distance with a somewhat abstract effect) or the Virgins in the Sulpician style (devotional Art form) which became increasingly popular.

With the advent of Expressionism (and later of Impressionism), 20th century Art showed itself to be much more subjective. The artist projected himself in his works and his inspiration is less religious. Nevertheless a number of great artists painted and sculpted representations of the Virgin, or depicted the Madonna on stained-glass windows, each in his own personal manner: from Picasso to Maurice Denis, from Rouant to Chagall and so many others ...

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(1 ) In the catacomb of Priscilla (circa AD 230) in Rome, a fresco of the Madonna and Child was discovered, with Balaam indicating a star with his hand, a representation of the famous prophecy of Balaam.