WOMAN IN ART
attitude is not that of mother and child; rather is it that of a model, as undoubtedly the original was, a model who was not a mother but a woman whom the baby knew or it would not have rested its forehead against her check. The lack of the spirit of motherhood is the reason for choosing this masterpiece of five hundred years ago as a criterion of art to start from.
Practically a hundred years later Andrea del Sarto gave to the art world "The Marriage of Saint Catherine" which represents the enthroned Madonna, the Child on her knee about to put the ring on the finger of Saint Catherine who, kneeling, extends her finger to receive it. Saint Barbara sits grace- fully to balance the picture, while on the lower step a little cherub has his arms about the neck of a young lamb. A cherub on either side holds back drapings of the canopy, thus forming a harmonious composition.
It is the only Madonna we recall which has a smiling countenance; her position is graceful and with no suggestion of posing for a picture; and the baby, balanced by the mother's left hand on his shoulder, is just a dimpled, winsome little human of about a year old, his face one bewitching smile, his interest fastened on the lamb and cherub on the lower step,— the most lovable babe in the realm of Italian renaissance painting. The mere thread of glory above each saintly head is in marked contrast to the Byzantine disks of gold.
A contemporary painter with Raphael, being but three years older, but living thirty-five years longer, was Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1555), who sweetly expressed the spirit of motherhood in his painting of the Madonna, the Christchild and the young St. John the Baptist, which is one of the beauties of the Dresden Gallery. The mother, simply and artistically gowned in the period of the renaissance, sits by the open window that gives a view of a bit of landscape. The Child lies in her lap leaning toward St. John who is leaning against the mother's knee as he receives the caress of the infant Jesus,—a painting which the mind easily locates in the home at Nazareth, and for that very reason adding to its influence as a churchly picture of motherhood.
In marked contrast to such simplicity and truth, the great master of color, Titian, painted a most ambitious Holy Family for a wealthy Venetian official. There are ten figures grouped on the marble steps of a portentous, pillared facade, aside from the Madonna and Child, who are merely accessory to the Pesaro family. The head of the family monopolizes the center of the canvas as Saint Peter, the large key of heaven, attached to his great toe,
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