"I began thinking of the Madonna and Child for St. Matthew's by considering in what ways a Madonna and Child differs from a carving of just a Mother and Child -- that is, by considering how in my opinion religious art differs from secular art.

It's not easy to describe in words what this difference is, except by saying in general terms that the Madonna and Child should have an austerity and a nobility, and some touch of grandeur (even hieratic aloofness) which is missing in the everyday Mother and Child idea.
Of the sketches and models I have done, the one chosen has, I think, a quiet dignity and gentleness. I have tried to give a sense of complete easiness and repose, as though the Madonna could stay in that position forever (as, being in stone, she will have to do). The Madonna is seated on a low bench, so that the angle formed between her nearly upright body and her legs is somewhat less than a right angle, and in this angle of her lap, safe and protected, sits the Infant."
(Henry Moore, in D. Mitchinson, Henry Moore Sculpture, with comments by the artist, London, 1981, p. 90)