- I was brought up in a fairly irreligious household. In fact, it was fairly
- suspicious of practiced religion. And so for many, many years I
- worked almost entirely on secular works of art. And then I started thinking about
- this relief and I realized that my fundamental
- views on religion and faith were being challenged.
- This has always seemed to me to be a very felt piece.
- The expression of the Madonna first with her gentle melancholy,
- a sense that she knows what will happen to her son.
- And then the baby’s expression, which is so brilliantly observed.
- He’s holding whatever it was that he once had in his hand at just
- exactly the distance you would expect a baby to hold something from its eye while it’s just trying to focus. You know, when it’s that age—
- her tenderness, his wriggling inquisitiveness—makes them exactly as they should be,
- human. The thing that’s startling is
- realizing that you’ve come to believe so completely in this image, that the lack of color is something you almost cease to notice.
- This work makes me remember that Christ and the Virgin are
- both, as it were, spirit
- and flesh. The very nature of sculptural relief is that bridge between something that is
- there with you, something that is three-dimensionally present, and something
- which is like a window on another world.
- It moves very subtly and very elegantly between something which is touchable and tangible,
- like the chubby fleshiness of Christ’s arm,
- like the slightly more bony, protective hand of the Virgin, to other areas which are incredibly
- shallow, like this
- swirling
- snowstorm of
- seraphim that
- cushion and protect the two figures like clouds.
- So after looking at this piece over the years,
- it hasn’t made me into a Christian,
- but I’ve come to realize that there’s a very
- profound difference between practiced religion and faith.
- Something which is profoundly beautiful on a human level
- has the capacity to transport beyond daily experience.
FaithLuke Syson
Madonna and Child with Angels, ca. 1455–60
Antonio Rossellino (Italian)
Marble with gilt details on halo and dress
Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913 (14.40.675)
Antonio Rossellino (Italian)
Marble with gilt details on halo and dress
Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913 (14.40.675)
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