My prior Art posts can be found HERE.
How do we move away from being a civilization that produces art that causes comments like, “my five year old could make this,” back to being one that creates beauty and inspires deep questions? We must reject modernity and embrace tradition. To embrace tradition, we must first learn about it.
Let’s study art history together.
The Coronation of the Virgin
| Artist | Diego Velázquez |
|---|---|
| Year | 1641-1644 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 176 cm × 124 cm (69 in × 49 in) |
| Location | Museo del Prado, Madrid |
The history of Western art is heavily influenced by religious faith – and that almost exclusively means Christianity. Within that larger umbrella, though, you will see different sub demographics of the faith represented. In the far eastern parts of the West (Greece, Romania, etc.) you are likely to see Orthodox Christian art. Everywhere else before the Reformation, you are likely to see Catholic art. Then of course, after the Reformation, you will see Protestant art in those places where the Reformation took hold – primarily Germanic populations in Europe and North America (Germany, the Netherlands, the U.K., the U.S., etc.)
Art – not surprisingly – sometimes makes an argument for one side of a faith divide against another, whether that is consciously or not. Marian art became even more popular among Catholic artists after Protestants began rejecting Marian dogmas. It might surprise some to know that the break from Marian dogma was not immediate, with the Reformation, but largely gradual. (You can find a lot of quotes from the early Reformers on the subject HERE.) However, a century after the Reformation, a lot of that rejection was well underway and that is the time in which Diego Velázquez painted.
It should be noted, first, that for him this painting is not entirely an event from outside of Scripture. This scene is derived from the Book of Revelation, starting in the last verse of chapter 11 and into chapter 12:
Revelation 11:19 Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.
Revelation 12: And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. 2 She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. 3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. 4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. 5 She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, 6 and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.
Reading this together (there weren’t chapter and verse breaks on the scroll when John wrote the text) you are provided a description of a woman, in Heaven, possibly described as the ark of the covenant, wearing a crown, and the woman is – and even most Protestant scholars agree with this – Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Who gives crowns in Heaven? The painting here provides the answer.
If you view this painting as a theological clap back against the Protestants, you might not be wrong. It was a commissioned work by the very Catholic Spanish monarchy and it was part of a series of Marian art pieces arriving in Madrid at the time. Spain had recently been at war with Protestant England and was going through some political upheaval. Perhaps the royal family wanted to double-down publicly on their faith. Of course, it is entirely possible that the works were done without thinking about the Reformation at all and simply from a sense of devotion. Catholic Spain after all, was still not far removed from completing a seven centuries long campaign to push out Islamic invaders, a victory which was almost immediately followed by beginning a global Empire that stretched into the America and into Asia via the Philippines. Catholic devotion by and among the Spanish was very intense. We can’t really know the motivation without knowing the heart of the one who commissioend the piece. But I think either explanation is entirely plausible.
The painting itself is one of the most well-known “Coronation of Mary” art pieces in history. It is noted aesthetically for its use of a very distinctive color palette (he uses blues, violet, and carmine instead of traditional red), giving it a unique visual appeal. The work is also known for some debate over whether the painter used the same model here as he used in other of his works.
(more via wiki)
The Coronation of the Virgin is a 1635–1636 painting on oil on canvas by Diego Velázquez of the Holy Trinity crowning the Blessed Virgin Mary, a theme in Marian art. It is now at the Museo del Prado.
It was probably commissioned for the oratory of the court of Elisabeth of France, queen consort to Philip IV of Spain, in the Real Alcázar of Madrid. There it joined others on Marian religious festivities by the Naples painter Andrea Vaccaro which had been brought to Madrid by cardinal Gaspar de Borja y Velasco. The model for Mary may be the same as he used for the Rokeby Venus.
Description
Velázquez’s coronation of the Virgin is well-known for being a rare religious work by an artist better known for his portraits, and for the air of naturalness and simplicity not found in works by other Baroque religious painters. Its composition is based on an inverted triangle, giving a sense of great equilibrium and harmonious lines and reminiscent (both in its colour and form) of a heart. The main figure is the Virgin Mary, with a modest, reverential, and emotional expression, lowered eyes, a straight nose and curved lips. The sense that the inverted triangle is meant to refer to a heart is reinforced and the viewer’s piety invoked by Mary pointing to her own heart.
To the viewer’s right is God the Father, represented as a dignified old man, whilst to the left is the long-haired figure of Jesus Christ – together they hold Mary’s crown above her head. In the centre the Holy Spirit is represented in the form of a white dove. The figures’ heads and the dove are level, on the line of the triangle’s base, representing their equality within the Holy Trinity. Also notable are the cherubs round the Virgin at the base of the painting – their pictorial quality rivals that of Murillo, famous for his cherub-themed works.
Velázquez uses mainly blues and violets, and as carmines (especially Venetian carmine) instead of traditional reds following the advice of his tutor Pacheco as written down in his book Arte de la Pintura, despite Velázquez already being an acclaimed artist by the time of producing this painting.
Model
Noting the resemblance of the model in these paintings, the art historian José López-Rey wrote in 1999 that “obviously, Velázquez worked in both cases, and, for that matter, in the Fable of Arachne and Arachne, from the same model, the same sketch, or just the same idea of a beautiful young woman. Yet, he put on canvas two different images, one of divine and the other of earthly beauty”. However, Neil MacLaren does not endorse these suggestions; they would probably argue that the painting was not produced in Italy. The Prado “Coronation” is dated to 1641–42; the present image is “stretched” vertically compared with the original.
