Madonna and Child
by Fr. Angelo M. Geiger, FI
The subject of the Madonna and Child has been used innumerable times in sacred art. From a doctrinal point of view, the image is a tangible sign of the reality of the Incarnation, the mystery upon which the Church is founded.
Certainly the most common subject of the visual arts in religious matters has been the Madonna and Child. From a human and natural point of view the attraction is understandable. But from a doctrinal and spiritual perspective, its importance cannot be understated as it reflects the fundamental principle of our relationship with God.
Most of us have heard the tradition that St. Luke was the first iconographer of the Madonna and Child. As the preeminent evangelist of
the conception, birth and infancy of Jesus, it is understandable how he would have been the first inspired to record the memory of Our Lady in its ineffable aspect of beauty. In the ancient tradition of Eastern icons there is a prototype of St. Luke painting the Virgin. This tradition, which in a sense is an apologetic for the use of icons, passed into the sacred art of the West during the Middle Ages. The fifteenth century Flemish painter Rogier van der Weyden has given us a fine ex ample of this composition in the Netherlandish style. The lesson to be learned here is that from the beginning, the deposit of faith has been handed on to us (tradition) not only verbally, but also graphically.
In the eight and ninth centuries there was a terrible persecution of the Church from the Eastern Empire because of the use of holy images Iconoclasm (image breaking) as it was known, was inspired both from without the Church by Islamic doctrine, and from within by these remnants of the Nestorian heresy. A creeping and omnipresent contempt for matter, and the denial that God could actually have something to do with it underlay the heretical destruction of images of Christ, His Mother and the saints.
Protestantism was in part a Neo-Iconoclasm, but whereas the old Iconoclasm was a breaking of the image of the incarnate Christ, the new brought a destruction of the visible Church. The problem here is that the Church and Christ go together like Madonna and Child.
Protestantism was in part a Neo-Iconoclasm, but whereas the old Iconoclasm was a breaking of the image of the incarnate Christ, the new brought a destruction of the visible Church. The problem here is that the Church and Christ go together like Madonna and Child. No matter how hard we try, Christians cannot escape the material world, save through death. Even so, in the end we will get our bodies back - and how. The Word was made flesh, the Church was made visible, and we will be raised bodily. Recently, Time magazine in the United States published a cover article on the growing devotion of Protestants to Our Lady. The author noted the apparent contradiction between an evangelical Church with a statue of Our Lady and a cross with no corpus. Perhaps Our Lady will help them put their feet back on the ground. The Church is terra firma.
No wonder then, that the word "mother" (Latin = mater) comes from the word "matter" (materia). The relationship of Mother and Child in the mystery of the Incarnation and the representation of that reality through the visual arts testifies to that essential Catholic truth that God has chosen to bring us grace through the instrumentality of the visible Church and the visible world.
And this means that not only do we have the seven Sacraments, and the sacramentals of the Church, like icons, but we have the number less material creatures as the vestiges (foot prints) of God.
The work of the artist, sacred or pro fane, is to be an instrument of actual grace, a subcreator, who may "smuggle" the higher spiritual truths into the material and sometimes hostile world. The iconographer understands this role, and his subjects literally bridge heaven and earth. The secular artist may not understand, but his craft is itself a path through beauty to God. May the Madonna teach us to see her Child, and the world around us, with her eyes.
Fr. Angelo M. Geiger is a priest of the Franciscans of the Immaculate. He is a well sought retreat master and conference speaker in North America and has written numerous articles on Franciscan and Marian topics. He is currently serving as the regional superior of the Franciscans of the Immaculate. He is currently residing in our friary in Griswold, CT.
