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Lot Essay
The proliferation of the image of the Immaculate Conception on a grand scale occurred during the Baroque era (1600 to 1750) in Europe. Indeed, the depiction of the Holy Virgin was the Roman Catholic Church’s most potent visual emblem during the Counter-Reformation in response to the rise of Protestantism which began in Germany and spread shortly thereafter throughout most of Northern Europe. The Counter-Reformation was a period of great spiritual revival which sparked a remarkable and exuberant artistic production in Western Europe but also the Spanish colonies across its expansive empire in the Americas and Asia. The pictorial arts were ideal vehicles with which to convey religious themes while evoking fervor and piety that strictly adhered to the Church’s tenets. The representation of the Madonna not only embodied the Mother of God, but also became synonymous of the Church. Furthermore, it enabled the Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans and other religious orders to propagate the faith in their global missionary zeal.[1]
Since the early days of the Church, the Virgin Mary was profoundly revered and by the fifth century, the feast of her Immaculate Conception was celebrated on December 8th among Christian communities in Syria.[2] And, although the cult of the Virgin had been widespread since the Middle Ages when almost every cathedral in Europe was named in her honor, the Church had not officially sanctioned the doctrine of her immaculate state. In July 1615 Pope Paul V formally established the office venerating the Immaculate Conception and the following year a papal bull forbidding anyone to teach or preach a conflicting opinion was issued.[3] Mary’s Immaculate Conception or birth “free from original sin” would not become dogma until 1854.[4]
In Spain where the Immaculate Conception became a locus of devotion by the early seventeenth century, numerous artists including Francisco Pacheco, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Juan Carreño de Miranda, and Juan de Valdés Leal among others, played a central role in disseminating an icon that followed the orthodox teachings of the Church. As well, other European masters rendered the subject with great eloquence such as Guido Reni, Jusepe Rivera and Peter Paul Rubens, whose dynamic paintings were widely available through prints in Nueva España.[5]The vision that gained favor was one that relied upon the prevalent iconography and compositions that had emerged from the various schools of painting in Spain and prints from masters like Rubens who portrayed the Virgin crushing the snake beneath her feet triumphantly. Equally important were the paintings done in the local workshops established by able Spanish masters who began to arrive in the late 1530s to train indigenous talent and displayed subtle yet fresh understanding of the theme.[6]
This monumental Immaculate Conception was likely commissioned by a prestigious religious order or other church officials. Most notably, the Holy Virgin is presented alone and is not yet a mother but rather enciente with the Holy Child as denoted by the knotted sash at her waist. She is resplendent with the golden rays of the sun according to the prophesy in the Book of Revelation: “A woman clothed with the sun, having the moon under her feet…”[7] The Virgin’s dazzling white robe denotes her purity while the color of her flowing mantle is blue, considered the most precious hue as it was produced from the exquisite lapis lazuli stone from remote Afghanistan, and alludes to the Heavens. As she firmly stands on a terrestrial globe, a symbol of her sovereignty and Redemption through Christ’s sacrifice, her feet crush a serpent, while the moon is behind her. A wooden frame signifying the tree of Jesse and Christ’s royal lineage enfolds her and bears comparison to the “garland paintings” of exquisite flowers with winged cherubim and seraphim by Jan Breughel the Elder and other Flemish masters which aided the praying faithful in experiencing both God's divinity and the majesty of his creation by contemplating such beauty.[8] The inclusion of the extravagant feathers on the shell atop the oval frame and the exotic birds at lower center may reveal the artist’s ethnicity and his wish to mark the work as belonging to Nueva España.
Margarita J. Aguilar, Doctoral Candidate, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
1 E. Young, “Claudio Coello and the Immaculate Conception in the School of Madrid,” The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 116, No. 858 (Sept. 1974), 509-515.
2 J. A. McGuckin, The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Its History, Doctrine, and Spiritual Culture, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, 218.
3 A. Johnson, Legends of the Madonna: As Represented in the Fine Arts (London: Hutchinson and Company, 1907), 101
4 See Pope Pius IX, 8 December 1854, Ineffabilis Deus, The Immaculate Conception,
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9ineff.htm, accessed on 23 Sep 2917.
5 D. Pierce, et al., Painting a New World : Mexican Art and Life, 1521-1821, Denver: Frederick and Jan Mayer Center for Pre-Columbian and Spanish Colonial Art, (Denver Art Museum, 2004), 21.
6 D. Pierce et al, p. 19. One of these Spanish artists was Baltasar de Echave Orio who was a Basque painter who had also worked in Seville. He went on to establish a dynasty of painters in Mexico.
7 The Book of Revelation (Apocalypse) has been attributed to John the Evangelist. The book is also referred to as an apocalyptic, that is, dealing with prophesy and heavily relying on the Old Testament writings of the prophets such as Isaiah. The passage referring to a “woman clothed by the sun” is found in Rev. XII: 1-4.
8 S. Merriam, Seventeenth-century Garland Painting: Still Life, Vision and the Devotional Image (Burlington, VT.: Ashgate Publishing Company, 1988), 3-5.
Since the early days of the Church, the Virgin Mary was profoundly revered and by the fifth century, the feast of her Immaculate Conception was celebrated on December 8th among Christian communities in Syria.[2] And, although the cult of the Virgin had been widespread since the Middle Ages when almost every cathedral in Europe was named in her honor, the Church had not officially sanctioned the doctrine of her immaculate state. In July 1615 Pope Paul V formally established the office venerating the Immaculate Conception and the following year a papal bull forbidding anyone to teach or preach a conflicting opinion was issued.[3] Mary’s Immaculate Conception or birth “free from original sin” would not become dogma until 1854.[4]
In Spain where the Immaculate Conception became a locus of devotion by the early seventeenth century, numerous artists including Francisco Pacheco, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Juan Carreño de Miranda, and Juan de Valdés Leal among others, played a central role in disseminating an icon that followed the orthodox teachings of the Church. As well, other European masters rendered the subject with great eloquence such as Guido Reni, Jusepe Rivera and Peter Paul Rubens, whose dynamic paintings were widely available through prints in Nueva España.[5]The vision that gained favor was one that relied upon the prevalent iconography and compositions that had emerged from the various schools of painting in Spain and prints from masters like Rubens who portrayed the Virgin crushing the snake beneath her feet triumphantly. Equally important were the paintings done in the local workshops established by able Spanish masters who began to arrive in the late 1530s to train indigenous talent and displayed subtle yet fresh understanding of the theme.[6]
This monumental Immaculate Conception was likely commissioned by a prestigious religious order or other church officials. Most notably, the Holy Virgin is presented alone and is not yet a mother but rather enciente with the Holy Child as denoted by the knotted sash at her waist. She is resplendent with the golden rays of the sun according to the prophesy in the Book of Revelation: “A woman clothed with the sun, having the moon under her feet…”[7] The Virgin’s dazzling white robe denotes her purity while the color of her flowing mantle is blue, considered the most precious hue as it was produced from the exquisite lapis lazuli stone from remote Afghanistan, and alludes to the Heavens. As she firmly stands on a terrestrial globe, a symbol of her sovereignty and Redemption through Christ’s sacrifice, her feet crush a serpent, while the moon is behind her. A wooden frame signifying the tree of Jesse and Christ’s royal lineage enfolds her and bears comparison to the “garland paintings” of exquisite flowers with winged cherubim and seraphim by Jan Breughel the Elder and other Flemish masters which aided the praying faithful in experiencing both God's divinity and the majesty of his creation by contemplating such beauty.[8] The inclusion of the extravagant feathers on the shell atop the oval frame and the exotic birds at lower center may reveal the artist’s ethnicity and his wish to mark the work as belonging to Nueva España.
Margarita J. Aguilar, Doctoral Candidate, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
1 E. Young, “Claudio Coello and the Immaculate Conception in the School of Madrid,” The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 116, No. 858 (Sept. 1974), 509-515.
2 J. A. McGuckin, The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Its History, Doctrine, and Spiritual Culture, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, 218.
3 A. Johnson, Legends of the Madonna: As Represented in the Fine Arts (London: Hutchinson and Company, 1907), 101
4 See Pope Pius IX, 8 December 1854, Ineffabilis Deus, The Immaculate Conception,
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9ineff.htm, accessed on 23 Sep 2917.
5 D. Pierce, et al., Painting a New World : Mexican Art and Life, 1521-1821, Denver: Frederick and Jan Mayer Center for Pre-Columbian and Spanish Colonial Art, (Denver Art Museum, 2004), 21.
6 D. Pierce et al, p. 19. One of these Spanish artists was Baltasar de Echave Orio who was a Basque painter who had also worked in Seville. He went on to establish a dynasty of painters in Mexico.
7 The Book of Revelation (Apocalypse) has been attributed to John the Evangelist. The book is also referred to as an apocalyptic, that is, dealing with prophesy and heavily relying on the Old Testament writings of the prophets such as Isaiah. The passage referring to a “woman clothed by the sun” is found in Rev. XII: 1-4.
8 S. Merriam, Seventeenth-century Garland Painting: Still Life, Vision and the Devotional Image (Burlington, VT.: Ashgate Publishing Company, 1988), 3-5.