I took sixty pictures of the Madonna and Child at the Uffizi this morning, and I know I didn’t get them all. Here are a few, more or less in chronological order, starting with the ones by Duccio, Cimabue and Giotto, painted around the end of the thirteenth century, and ending with one painted in the seventeenth century.
Although the interpretations move from religious to secular, in all the paintings I am aware of the impersonal and distant relationship between Mary and Jesus. For me, this is not a message of mother love but of the sacrifice of Mary as the mother of God, and the foreshadowing of Jesus’ death on the cross.
Although the interpretations move from religious to secular, in all the paintings I am aware of the impersonal and distant relationship between Mary and Jesus. For me, this is not a message of mother love but of the sacrifice of Mary as the mother of God, and the foreshadowing of Jesus’ death on the cross.
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