Brief introduction

My impulse to write is purely dictated by the desire to show you two parallel realities of art, through which two visions of motherhood par excellence have now overlapped, in each case made explicit through the iconic image of a mother caught in the company of her tender child. In fact, while depictions of this latter intimate bond have long represented a miscellany of everyday scenes, accompanied in unison by a more rigorous religious iconography, it is important to highlight how in the now distant past, and more specifically during the medieval and renaissance periods, the Western figurative narrative regarding motherhood exclusively took on the guise of the sacred Madonna and Child, an unequivocal and unambiguous illustration of the concepts of creation, purity and love for the child, but also of the very bond with the divine, as the Virgin unconditionally accepted her destiny as a mother imposed on her from above. The coexistence of the sacred and the profane, with regard to the aforementioned theme, came to the fore only gradually, no doubt due to the impetus of the likes of Caravaggio, who, during the seventeenth century, represented divine motherhood as a more human and earthly event. Despite this "debut," the success of the "Profane Madonnas" materialized only between the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a time when the depiction of ordinary mortals became associated with a new vision of motherhood, sometimes apt to also highlight aspects of pain and suffering, well summarized by the expressionist narrative and the depiction of the unconscious of authors such as Egon Schiele.

MATERNITY 9 (2023) Painting by Madeline Berger (MadB).

Sacred and profane: the comparison

We have come to the attempt to associate some of the best-known Madonnas with Child in the history of art with subsequent secular masterpieces, in order to unveil unprecedented affinities, which, through the simple association of places, colors and gestures, lead us to recognize recurring aspects of motherhood, a bond to be understood as a true extension of a woman's life, continued in that of a new being, which must be wisely forged with adequate care and attention, which lead us to thank our generators with the following liberating statement: long live mothers! Accordingly, thinking of dedicating this tale to my own, getting her as excited as at the premiere of a infant tutu recital, I start with Giotto, iconic creator of the Nativity of Jesus (1303-05), a fresco in which, despite multiple points of interest, the Madonna remains completely absorbed looking at her son, an action that finds its setting within a rocky landscape, where the presence of a wooden stable is imposed, near which an attendant, the ox and donkey, as well as sleeping Joseph, shepherds and their flock and five angels also appear: four intent on addressing gestures of prayer to the newborn child, while the fifth undertakes to instruct the aforementioned shepherds about the miraculous event. Giotto's very hut brings us to the similar place where Giovanni Segantini set the painting The Two Mothers (1889), a work in which there is not only a profane motherhood, but also an animal example of the genre. Indeed, within a stable lit by an oil lamp, there appears to us a double vision of the aforementioned affectivity: a young mother, seated on a milking stool and dressed simply, is caught in sleep while lovingly guarding her baby in her arms, while, on the left of the support, a cow, captured at the moment of feeding from a feeder, places her body close to that of her young, calf caught resting peacefully almost camouflaged among the straw. From affinities of place we now move on to chromatic ones, starting with Cimabue's gold and ending with Vincent van Gogh's "near" yellow, that is, by analyzing the Madonna of Santa Trinita (1260-80) and Madame Roulin and Her Baby (1888).

Giotto, Nativity of Jesus, c. 1303-1305. Fresco, 200 × 185 cm. Padua: Scrovegni Chapel.

Vincent Van Gogh, Madame Roulin and Her Baby, 1888. Oil on canvas, 63.5 cm × 20.3 cm. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Speaking of the first bright masterpiece, the tempera on panel by the Florentine master immortalizes a Virgin placed at the center of the altarpiece, a figure who is seated on an imposing architectural throne, from which she is shown intent on carrying Jesus, Child who is surrounded, together with his mother, by four angels on the right and four on the left, while below take shape the figures of the four prophets realized in half-length. The importance of this masterpiece lies in the fact that it represents a clear example of the Tuscan master's mature painting, realized through stylistic devices capable of innovating the previous Byzantine tradition, capable of giving the human figure a more natural and less stereotyped appearance. As for Van Gogh, on the other hand, his brilliant work represents a "separate" figurative investigation, in that his view of the world, and consequently of the human species, was loosely structured with respect to tradition, because the tormented Dutch artist followed exclusively the motions of his soul, which, in this case, led to the creation of the vigorous portrait of Augustine and his infant daughter Marcelle, that is, one of the many works the master dedicated to the Roulin family, created about six months after the artist moved from Paris to Arles. In conclusion, the link between present and past recurs in the gestures, particularly that of breastfeeding, captured by both Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Madonna of Milk (1324-25) and Auguste Renoir's profane Maternity (1885). The first masterpiece is considered to be at the pinnacle of a fourteenth-century trend toward representing the iconography of the Madonna of Milk in a less stylized and more realistic manner, which, in this particular case, occurs by losing the frontality typical of Byzantine icons in order to lovingly turn the Virgin toward the infant Jesus. The same gentleness of intent, probably, was pursued by the aforementioned French master, who, in the 1885 painting, takes the opportunity to immortalize a subject, which, as the protagonist of a series of works, is aimed at depicting his future bride Aline while breastfeeding little Pierre. Finally, just as in the past, the subject of motherhood continues to be very much in vogue in contemporary art, a fact demonstrable through the analysis of some works by Artmajeur artists, such as, for example, Woman Carrying Life by Corbello, Mother by Jayr Peny, and Woman and Bird by Anne Christine Fernand Laurent.

WOMAN WHO BRINGS LIFE (2021)Sculpture by Corbello.

Corbello: Woman who brings life

The title of Corbello's dark sculpture states with extreme clarity, and thus without leaving any doubt in the viewer's mind, the task of the pregnant body of the protagonist, a cradle intended to contain, protect and nurture, as well as subsequently give birth to, a new life. In a similar way, however, occurred the "birthing" of the sculptor of Artmajeur, who, after ideally conceiving the aforementioned work and nurturing it with his thoughts, took in hand the tools to give it life and concrete form in the real world. A similar action was performed by Pablo Picasso, who was similarly the author of an image of life par excellence, which, realized through the eternally generating medium of art, took concrete form in the sculpture titled Pregnant Woman (1950), a work in plaster, wood and ceramic preserved at the MoMA (New York), in which the vessels that make up the breasts and dilated uterus of the effigy are quite visible, probably made to express a kind of fulfillment of the artist's wish for having third child. In fact, it seems that at the time Picasso's partner Françoise Gilot, with whom he lived between 1946 and 1953, refused to have another child with him, so much so that the famous artist tried to convince her by making the aforementioned sculpture itself, which becoming to all intents and purposes a kind of fertility totem, unfortunately failed in its persuasive intentions. Finally, as far as contemporary art is concerned, worth mentioning is Ron Mueck's sculpture Pregnant woman (2002), a hyperrealist work made of fiberglass, silicone and human hair, which took shape from the careful study of a model, books, photographs and thematic drawings, "recomposed" in order to achieve the most perfect mode of execution.

"MOTHER" (2022)Painting by Jayr Peny.

Jayr Peny: Mother

Following examples from the more classical figurative tradition, the Mother of Peny might have drawn inspiration from masterpieces of similar composition, such as, for example, the Madonna and Child (c. 1320) by Maestro di San Torpè, the Madonna and Child (c. 1485) by Lorenzo Di Credi, the Madonna and Child (c. 1445-50) by Beato Angelico, etc. But what if we abandon the pillars of Western art and look for Mother's models in the creative production of the East? Surely we would come across the work of Kitagawa Utamaro, a Japanese painter and draughtsman who is considered one of the greatest artists of ukiyo-e, or that typical woodblock print, through which he brought to life Midnight: Mother and Sleepy Child (1790), a masterpiece that, depicting the harmonious love of a mother for her son, is part of the well-known series entitled "Fuzoku Bijin Tokei," literally: Everyday Habits of Women. In that creative context precisely Midnight: Mother and Sleepy Child, conceived for the purpose of illustrating the midnight hour, sought to depict a mother sleepily stepping out of the mosquito net to care for her son, who, extremely sleepy, rubs his eyes. The personal, everyday nature of such a subject gives us a measure of the new interest that emerged for the individual during the Edo period, a time when Utamaro showed all his dedication to women's studies, but also to the more tender images of mothers and children caught in daily routine.

WOMAN WITH A BIRD (2021)Painting by Anne Christine Fernand Laurent.

Anne Christine Fernand Laurent: Woman with a Bird

Why include Laurent's painting in the theme aimed at including mothers? We find the answer in the most modern assertions of feminism, according to which not all women need necessarily be associated with motherhood and, if that is the case, the forms of the latter have now expanded so much that one sometimes finds it legitimate to recognize in companion animals, a kind of continuation of one's being. Making no judgments of any kind about personal choices, but simply finding myself in agreement in celebrating the multitude of forms of human happiness, I dedicate this final part of my narrative to all women who, for whatever reason, have decided not to be mothers, but to constellate, in their soft arms, the widest range of expressions of love, which, in this case, I wanted to associate with the form of animal life borrowed from the work of the artist from Artmajeur, apparent homage to the masterpieces of Leonardo da Vinci's The Lady with an Ermine (1488- 1490) and Raphael's Lady with a Unicorn (1505-6). Regarding the latter painting, The Lady with Unicorn is portrayed in the center of the painting, part of the support in which she assumes a three-quarter position, which, oriented to the left, causes her gaze to turn to the right. In addition to her face, which is youthful and regular, her long blond hair, gathered in a hairstyle, falls behind her back resting on a dress that features a wide neckline, on which a precious necklace, decorated with a large square ruby and a white pearl, is visible. On this very elegant garment is crouched a small unicorn, which, like a furry child, is protected, cradled and guarded by the woman, whose eyes seem to exclaim that she is ready for anything to defend it.