Friday, January 3, 2025

15 works, Today, January 3rd, is Saint Genevieve's day, her story, illustrated #003

Puvis de Chavannes
L'Enfance de Sainte Geneviève" (detailles), 1876 - 1878
Oil on canvas
Norton Simon Museum

St. Genevieve (422-512), was born at Nanterre, a village on the outskirts of Paris, during the time of Attila the Hun. She was a shepherdess, the only child of Severus and Gerontia, hardworking peasants. She was seven years old when Saint Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, was visiting the village with Saint Lupus, on their way to great Britain to combat the heresy of Pelagius. Seeing Genevieve in the crowd, Bishop St. Germain laid his hands on her head, and asked if she wanted to give herself to the Lord. Genevieve said “Yes!” Her mother opposed her decision, which angered Genevieve tremendously. Genevieve’s mother was struck blind until she was forgiven by her daughter. Taking a gold coin from his purse, Saint Germanus gave it to her, telling her to keep it always as a reminder of that day and of God to whom her life belonged.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (14 December 1824 – 24 October 1898) was a French painter best known for his mural painting, who came to be known as 'the painter for France'. He became the co-founder and president of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, and his work influenced many other artists, notably Robert Genin. Puvis de Chavannes was a prominent painter in the early Third Republic. Émile Zola described his work as "an art made of reason, passion, and will" More on Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

Flemish School, late 16th century
Saint Genevieve keeping her sheep, from 1575 until 1600
Carnavalet Museum, Paris

Sainte Genevieve watching over her flock protected by a stone circle. When she did not destroy these prehistoric megaliths, the Church tried to Christianize the symbols "diabolic"

Flemish School painting flourished from the early 15th century until the 17th century. Flanders delivered the leading painters in Northern Europe and attracted many promising young painters from neighbouring countries. These painters were invited to work at foreign courts and had a Europe-wide influence. Since the end of the Napoleonic era, Flemish painters had again been contributing to a reputation that had been set by the Old Masters. More FLEMISH SCHOOL

Charles Sprague Pearce (1851-1914)
Sainte Genevieve, c. 1887
Oil on canvas
82 x 66 in
Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, USA

On the deaths of her parents, she went to live with her godmother Lutetia in Paris, where she became a nun and dedicated herself to a Christian life. (Coincidentally, "Lutetia" was the former name of the city of Paris). She experienced visions and prophecies, which initially evoked hostility from Parisians--to the point that an attempt was made to take her life. But the support of Germanus, who visited her again, and the accuracy of her predictions eventually changed their attitudes. (Germanus also corrected some of her harsher penances during this visit.)

Charles Sprague Pearce (October 13, 1851 – May 18, 1914) was an American artist. Pearce was born at Boston, Massachusetts. In 1873 he became a pupil of Léon Bonnat in Paris, and after 1885 he lived in Paris and at Auvers-sur-Oise. He painted Egyptian and Algerian scenes, French peasants, and portraits, and also decorative work, notably for the Thomas Jefferson Building at the Library of Congress at Washington. He received medals at the Paris Salon and elsewhere, and was made Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, decorated with the Order of Leopold, Belgium, the Order of the Red Eagle, Prussia, and the Order of the Dannebrog, Denmark. More on Charles Sprague Pearce

Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553)
Detail from Saints Genevieve and Apollonia, c. 1506
Oil on lime
120.5 x 63 cm
The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London

This painting is part of the group: The St Catherine Altarpiece: Reverses of Shutters
Saint Genevieve of Paris holds the candle which she miraculously relit. On the brooch at her neck are the alpha and omega signs.

She loved to pray in church alone at night. One day a gust of wind blew out her candle, leaving her in the dark. Geneviève merely concluded that the devil was trying to frighten her. For this reason she is often depicted holding a candle, sometimes with an irritated devil standing near.

Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. 1472 – 16 October 1553) was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving. He was court painter to the Electors of Saxony for most of his career, and is known for his portraits, both of German princes and those of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, whose cause he embraced with enthusiasm, becoming a close friend of Martin Luther. He also painted religious subjects, first in the Catholic tradition, and later trying to find new ways of conveying Lutheran religious concerns in art. He continued throughout his career to paint nude subjects drawn from mythology and religion. He had a large workshop and many works exist in different versions; his son Lucas Cranach the Younger, and others, continued to create versions of his father's works for decades after his death. Lucas Cranach the Elder has been considered the most successful German artist of his time. More Lucas Cranach the Elder

Unknown seventeenth-century Artist
Saint Genevieve, Defender of Paris
Musée Carnavalet, Salle Henri III, Paris

In 451, When Attila the Hun approached Paris, with the help of Germanus' archdeacon, she upbraided the panic-stricken people of Paris who wanted to leave town. She reassured the people that they had the protection of heaven. Many of the inhabitants lost heart and fled in panic, but Geneviève again gathered the women around her, and led them out on to the ramparts of the city, where in the morning light and in the face of the spears of the enemy they prayed to God for deliverance. Providentially, the same night, the invader turned south to Orleans. 

Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes (1824 - 1898)
St. Genevieve Bringing Supplies to the City of Paris after the Siege
Fresco 
Paris, Pantheon

When Childeric I ( 440 – 481/482) (A Merovingian king of the Salian Franks) besieged the Paris in 464 and conquered it, she acted as an intermediary between the city and its conqueror. 

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (14 December 1824 – 24 October 1898) was a French painter best known for his mural painting, who came to be known as 'the painter for France'. He became the co-founder and president of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, and his work influenced many other artists, notably Robert Genin. Puvis de Chavannes was a prominent painter in the early Third Republic. Émile Zola described his work as "an art made of reason, passion, and will" More on Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

St. Geneviève

Geneviève took a boat and rowed out alone (more likely at the head of a company) upon the river into the darkness to Arcis-sur-Aube and Troyes. She slipped silently and secretly past the lines of the enemy, landing at dawn far outside the city, where she went from village to village imploring help and gathering food, and returned to Paris--again successfully evading the enemy--with eleven boatloads of precious corn. (Other sources say that nightly she captained eleven barges to collect grain in the Champagne region). 

François-Louis Dejuinne (1786–1844)
Clovis 1st king of the Franks (465-511), c. 1837
Oil on canvas
Height: 145.5 cm (57.2 ″); Width: 92 cm (36.2 ″)
Palace of Versailles

On the death of Childeric, his son Clovis succeeded him and consolidated control of the land from the Rhine to the Loire.( c. 466 – c. 511) (The first king to unite all of the Frankish tribes under one ruler. He is considered the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, c. 466 – c. 511) was the first king of the Franks to unite all of the Frankish tribes under one ruler. He is considered the founder of the Merovingian dynasty.) He married Childeric's elder daughter, Clothilde.

François-Louis Dejuinne (1786–1844) was a French painter. He was born in Paris in 1786, and learned the art of painting under Girodet. He visited Rome, where he studied the works of Titian, Paolo Veronese, and other great masters. He died in Paris in 1844. His paintings were mostly historical; among them are the 'Ascension of the Virgin ' and 'St. Geneviève' for Notre-Dame de Lorette, and 'The Four Seasons' for the Trianon Palace. More on François-Louis Dejuinne

Pierre-Louis Delaval (1818)
Sainte Clotilde urging Clovis before the battle
Chapelle Sainte-Geneviève

Geneviève became his trusted counsellor. Clovis entered a harsh battle and promised to be baptized, if he should win. He won and under the influence of Geneviève, he converted in 496. His people and servants followed suit.

Pierre-Louis Delaval, born April 27, 1790 in Paris where he died around 1870, is a French painter.

A pupil of Girodet-Trioson , Delaval began at the Salon of 1810 with two historical pictures which had him included in the small number of artists exempted from conscription by imperial decree. A compliant imitator of his master in his early days, he showed, in the second half of his career, the qualities of colorist and draftsman who could have classified him among the masters if they had been developed by a more vigorous temperament.

Delaval painted mainly history and religious subjects. The historical galleries of Versailles also owe him many portraits. He obtained a second medal in 1817. More on Pierre-Louis Delaval

Master of Saint Giles (d. 511)
The Baptism of Clovis, c. 1500
Wood
National Gallery of Art, Washington

This was painted about a thousand years after Saint Rémy baptized the Frankish King Clovis, thereby converting him to Christianity. Master of Saint Giles has transferred the historic event from Reims to the interior of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, thus providing the earliest known record of the interior of the famous, still extant, building.

By the time she died King Clovis of the Franks had grown to venerate the saint. It was at Geneviève's suggestion that Clovis began to build the church of SS. Peter and Paul in the middle of Paris, where they interred her body. Later the church was renamed Sainte Geneviève and it was rebuilt in 1746.

The Master of Saint Giles was a Franco-Flemish painter active, probably in Paris, about 1500, working in a delicate Late Gothic manner, with rendering of textures and light and faithful depictions of actual interiors that show his affinities with Netherlandish painting. It is not clear whether the Master of Saint Giles was a French painter who trained in the Low Countries, or a Netherlander who emigrated to France.

His pseudonym was given him by Max Friedländer, who reconstructed part of the anonymous painter's oeuvre, starting from two panels that were part of the lefthand shutter of an altarpiece, and two further panels, now in Washington, from the same altarpiece. The hand of an assistant can be discerned in the Baptism of Clovis at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. All four panels have, or had, single grisaille figures of saints (Saints Peter, Giles, Denis and an unidentified bishop-saint) in niches, imitating sculpture, on the reverse. The Washington pair, which were in poor condition, have been separated and are lost, although photographs exist. Undoubtedly there were further panels, whose subjects cannot be guessed, as the combination of scenes is original. More on The Master of Saint Giles


Church of St. Genevieve, Paris
Miracles performed at her tomb made her and the Church famous all over France

 Clovis roi des Francs, (1726–1806)
Miracles of the Ardents, c. 1773
Church of St Genevieve at St Roch

Miracle des Ardens or burning fever (ergot-poisoning) in 1129. Bishop Stephen of Paris had her shrine carried through the streets in solemn procession. Many thousands of the sick who saw or touched the shrine were immediately cured, and only several deaths from the plague were said to have occurred thereafter.

Gabriel François Doyen (1726 – 5 June 1806) was a French painter, who was born at Paris.

He became an artist against his father's wishes, becoming a pupil at the age of twelve of Charles-André van Loo. Making rapid progress, he obtained at twenty the Grand Prix de Rome, and in 1748 set out for Rome, then visited Naples, Bologna and, crucially, Venice. While in the latter city Doyen was greatly influenced by the work of the famous colourists, such as Titian.

In 1755 he returned to Paris and, at first unappreciated and disparaged, he resolved by one grand effort to achieve a reputation, and in 1758 he exhibited his Death of Virginia. It was completely successful, and procured him admission to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. Doyen was also influenced by Peter Paul Rubens after a visit to Antwerp. This influence is, perhaps, best displayed in his Le Miracle des ardents, painted for the church of St Genevieve at St Roch (1767). This painting was exhibited in the salon of 1767. In 1776 he was appointed professor at the Academy.

During the initial stages of the French Revolution he became active in the national museum project; however in 1791 he left France for Russia on the invitation of Catherine II of Russia. He settled in St Petersburg, where he was much honoured by the Imperial family and Russian art establishment. He died there on 5 June 1806. More on Gabriel François Doyen

Maurice Quentin de La Tour
Portrait of King Louis XV, c. 1748
Pastel
64x54
Louvre Museum

In 1741, Louis XV came to her church to thank her for a cure wrought at her intercession.

Maurice-Quentin de La Tour, (born Sept. 5, 1704, Saint-Quentin, France—died Feb. 17, 1788, Saint-Quentin), pastelist whose animated and sharply characterized portraits made him one of the most successful and imitated portraitists of 18th-century France.

Early in his youth La Tour went to Paris, where he entered the studio of the Flemish painter Jacques Spoede. He then went to Reims, Cambrai (1724), and England (c. 1725), returning to Paris to resume his studies in about 1727.

In 1737 La Tour exhibited the first of a splendid series of 150 portraits that formed one of the glories of the Salon for the next 37 years. He was able to endow his sitters with a distinctive air of charm and intelligence, and he excelled at capturing the delicate play of facial features. In 1746 he was received into the Academy and in 1751 was promoted to councillor. La Tour was made portraitist to the king in 1750, a position he held until 1773. La Tour retired at age 80 to Saint-Quentin. More on Maurice-Quentin de La Tour

Jean-Pierre Houël, (1735–1813)
Prise de la Bastille/ The Storming of the Bastille, c. 1789
Watercolor
Height: 50.5 cm (19.8 ″); Width: 37.8 cm (14.8 ″)
Bibliothèque nationale de France

In the center is the arrest of Bernard René Jourdan, governor of the Bastille, and his wife

When the Bastille was taken, people again came to thank her. In 1790, the Commune went to her church for Mass.

Jean-Pierre-Louis-Laurent Houël (28 June 1735 – 14 November 1813) was a French painter, engraver and draftsman. During his long life Houël witnessed the reign of Louis XV, the French Revolution, and the period of Napoleon's First Empire.

He was born at Rouen into a family of prosperous artisans, who sent him to the city's drawing academy when he was fifteen.

He was exposed to the art of early Dutch and Flemish painters, which was to have a defining impact on his chosen specialty of landscape painting. In 1758 Houël published a book of landscape engravings, and in 1768 he painted six views of the Duc de Choiseul's country estate, the Château de Chanteloup. The following year his influential patrons secured a place for him at the French Academy in Rome. Here, captivated with Italian customs, landscapes, and ancient sites, he traveled throughout southern Italy, making gouache drawings, which he presented at the Paris Salons of the early 1770s, exhibits that drew the attention of a wide public.

He spent the years 1776 to 1779 traveling in Sicily, Lipari, and Malta, after which, based on his journey, he published a series of four volumes of lavishly illustrated travel books (1782–1787). Houël's main intention was to illustrate local topography, but his delicate applications of watercolor also magnificently captured the effects of light and atmosphere. To help finance these projects, he sold his preliminary drawings in Paris in 1780. Louis XVI purchased 46, and Catherine II of Russia, more than 500, of which 260 are preserved at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

In his later years Houël published two illustrated treatises on elephants. Drawings of other animals suggest he was preparing to publish further zoological works; however, his death at the age of seventy-eight cut short his plans. More on Jean-Pierre-Louis-Laurent Houël






Please visit my other blogs: Art CollectorMythologyMarine ArtPortrait of a Lady, The OrientalistArt of the Nude and The Canals of VeniceMiddle East Artists365 Saints365 Days, and Biblical Icons, also visit my Boards on Pinterest and my art stores at  deviantart and Aaroko

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Sunday, December 29, 2024

04 works, Today, December 29th, is The Holy Innocents' day, or The Massacre in Gaza, their story, illustrated #361

Angelo Visconti, (1829–1861)
The Massacre of the Innocents, c. 1860 - 1861
Oil on canvas
Height: 100.50 mm (3.95 in); Width: 74.50 mm (2.93 in)
Cassioli Museum, Asciano, Italy

Angelo Viscónti (1829–1861) was an Italian painter, mainly depicting turbulent scenes including historic and sacred subjects.

He was born in Siena and trained under Luigi Mussini. In 1854-1855, he won a traveling stipend along with Amos Cassioli. He moved to live with Cassioli in Rome in 1858.[1] He suffered an epileptic convulsion while in the Tiber River in Rome, and drowned. More on Angelo Viscónti

Herod “the Great,” king of Judea, was unpopular with his people because of his connections with the Romans and his religious indifference. Hence he was insecure and fearful of any threat to his throne. He was a master politician and a tyrant capable of extreme brutality. He killed his wife, his brother, and his sister’s two husbands, to name only a few.

Herod was “greatly troubled” when astrologers from the east came asking the whereabouts of “the newborn king of the Jews,” whose star they had seen. They were told that the Jewish Scriptures named Bethlehem as the place where the Messiah would be born. Herod cunningly told them to report back to him so that he could also “do him homage.” They found Jesus, offered him their gifts, and warned by an angel, avoided Herod on their way home. 

Jacopo Tintoretto, (1519–1594)
The Massacre of the Innocents, between 1582 and 1587
Height: 422 cm (13.8 ft); Width: 546 cm (17.9 ft)
Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice, Italy

Tintoretto; born Jacopo Comin, (October, 1518 – May 31, 1594) was an Italian painter and a notable exponent of the Renaissance school. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso. His work is characterized by its muscular figures, dramatic gestures, and bold use of perspective in the Mannerist style, while maintaining color and light typical of the Venetian School.
 
In his youth, Tintoretto was also known as Jacopo Robusti as his father had defended the gates of Padua in a way that others called robust, against the imperial troops during the War of the League of Cambrai (1509–1516). His real name "Comin" has only recently been discovered by Miguel Falomir, the curator of the Museo del Prado, Madrid, and was made public on the occasion of the retrospective of Tintoretto at the Prado in 2007. More on Tintoretto

Peter Paul Rubens, (1577–1640)
Massacre of the Innocents, between 1611 and 1612
Oil on oak wood
Height: 142 cm (55.9 in); Width: 182 cm (71.6 in)
Art Gallery of Ontario, Ontario, Canada 

Sir Peter Paul Rubens (28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish Baroque painter. A proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasized movement, colour, and sensuality, Rubens is well known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.

In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp that produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically educated humanist scholar and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV of Spain and Charles I of England.  More Sir Peter Paul Rubens

Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.

William Holman Hunt,  (1827–1910)
The Triumph of the Innocents, circa 1883
Oil on canvas
Height: 1,562 cm (17 yd); Width: 254 cm (100 in)
Tate Britain 

Hunt began painting this subject while on a visit to the Holy Land in the 1870s. He originally intended to show just the Holy Family, but he later decided to add the martyred innocents. The Holy Family are surrounded by the spirits of the children slain by Herod. Hunt wanted the bubbles, or ‘airy globes’ which accompany the procession, to convey a sense of the waves of ‘the streams of eternal life’. More on this work

William Holman Hunt OM (2 April 1827 – 7 September 1910) was an English painter and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His paintings were notable for their great attention to detail, vivid color, and elaborate symbolism. These features were influenced by the writings of John Ruskin and Thomas Carlyle, according to whom the world itself should be read as a system of visual signs. For Hunt it was the duty of the artist to reveal the correspondence between sign and fact. Of all the members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Hunt remained most true to their ideals throughout his career. He was always keen to maximize the popular appeal and public visibility of his works. More on William Holman Hunt

An angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and warned him to take Jesus and his mother into Egypt

In medieval England children were reminded of the mournfulness of the day by being whipped in bed in the morning; this custom survived into the 17th century. More on Feast of the Holy Innocents




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Saturday, January 2, 2021

10 works, Today, January 2nd, is Saint Seraphim of Sarov's day, his story, illustrated #365

Unknown artist
Saint Seraphim
Oil on canvas
I have no further description, at this time

Saint Seraphim of Sarov (1754– 1833), born Prokhor Moshnin is one of the most renowned Russian saints and venerated both in the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church. He is generally considered the greatest of the 19th-century startsy, elders. 

Seraphim was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1903. Alongside his veneration in the Catholic calendar, Pope John Paul II also referred to him as a Saint

In 1777, at the age of 19, he joined the Sarov monastery as a novice. He was officially took his monastic vows in 1786 and given the religious name of Seraphim. Shortly afterwards, he was ordained a monastic deacon. In 1793, he was ordained as a monastic priest and became the spiritual leader of the Diveyevo Convent, which has since come to be known as the Seraphim-Diveyevo Convent.

Unknown iconographe
The Virgin Mary tells Saint Seraphim began admitting pilgrims to his hermitage
I have no further description, at this time

Soon after this, Seraphim retreated to a log cabin in the woods outside Sarov monastery and led a solitary lifestyle as a hermit for 25 years. During this time his feet became swollen to the point that he had trouble walking. Sarov's eating and fasting habits became more strict. At first he ate bread obtained from the monastery and vegetables from his garden, then only vegetables. For three years, he ate only grass.

Unknown iconographer
Thieves who beat Saint Seraphim mercilessly
Sarov Monastery
I have no further description, at this time

Unknown iconographer
Seraphim of Sarov had a hunched back for the rest of his life
I have no further description, at this time

One day, while chopping wood, Seraphim was attacked by a gang of thieves who beat him mercilessly with the handle of his own axe. He never resisted, and was left for dead. The robbers never found the money they sought, only an icon of the Theotokos, the Virgin Mary, in his hut. Seraphim had a hunched back for the rest of his life. However, at the thieves' trial he pleaded to the judge for mercy on their behalf.

Unknown iconographer
Seraphim spent 1,000 successive nights on a rock
I have no further description, at this time

Unknown iconographer
Seraphim spent continuous prayer with his arms raised to the sky
I have no further description, at this time

After this incident Seraphim spent 1,000 successive nights on a rock in continuous prayer with his arms raised to the sky, a feat of asceticism deemed miraculous by the Eastern Orthodox Church, especially considering the pain from his injuries.

Unknown Russian artist, Active in the 20th century
Saint Seraphim feeding a bear outside of his hermitage
Oil on canvas
33 cm x 39 cm. 
Private collection

In 1815, in obedience to a reputed spiritual experience that he attributed to the Virgin Mary, Seraphim began admitting pilgrims to his hermitage as a confessor. 

Unknown iconographer
Hundreds of pilgrims per day visited Saint Seraphim
Seraphim-Diveyevo Convent.

He soon became immensely popular due to his reputation for healing powers and gift of prophecy. Hundreds of pilgrims per day visited him, drawn as well by his ability to answer his guests' questions before they could ask.

Unknown iconographer
Saint Seraphim von Sarov prayed to help his spiritual student Nicholai Motovilov to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit 
I have no further description, at this time

As extraordinarily harsh as Seraphim often was to himself, he was kind and gentle toward others — always greeting his guests with a prostration, a kiss, and exclaiming "Christ is risen!", and calling everyone "My joy." 

Unknown iconographer
Saint Seraphim died while kneeling before an Umilenie icon of the Theotokos
I have no further description, at this time

He died while kneeling before an Umilenie icon of the Theotokos which he called "Joy of all Joys". This icon is kept currently in the chapel of the residence of the Patriarch of Moscow.




Please visit my other blogs: Art CollectorMythologyMarine ArtPortrait of a Lady, The OrientalistArt of the Nude and The Canals of VeniceMiddle East Artistsand 365 Saints, also visit my Boards on Pinterest

Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others. Some Images may be subject to copyright

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16 works, Today, January 1st, is Mary the Blessed Virgin's day, her story, illustrated #364

Edvard Munch, (1863–1944)
Detail; Madonna, c. 1895
Oil on canvas
Height: 90 cm (35.4 in); Width: 71 cm (27.9 in)
Kunsthalle, Hamburg

Edvard Munch (12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter and printmaker whose intensely evocative treatment of psychological themes built upon some of the main tenets of late 19th-century Symbolism and greatly influenced German Expressionism in the early 20th century. One of his most well-known works is The Scream of 1893. More

Edvard Munch was a prolific yet perpetually troubled artist preoccupied with matters of human mortality such as chronic illness, sexual liberation, and religious aspiration. He expressed these obsessions through works of intense color, semi-abstraction, and mysterious subject matter. Following the great triumph of French Impressionism, Munch took up the more graphic, symbolist sensibility of the influential Paul Gauguin, and in turn became one of the most controversial and eventually renowned artists among a new generation of continental Expressionist and Symbolist painters. Munch came of age in the first decade of the 20th century, during the peak of the Art Nouveau movement and its characteristic focus on all things organic, evolutionary and mysteriously instinctual. More on Edvard Munch 

Mary's father Joachim was a wealthy member of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. He and his wife Anne were deeply grieved by their childlessness. Joachim consequently withdrew to the desert, where he fasted and did penance for 40 days. Angels then appeared to both Joachim and Anne to promise them a child.

Sainte Anne vowed to dedicate the child to the service in the Temple.

Guido Reni
Mary's Birth, c. 1609 - 1611
Oil on canvas
360 x 335 cm
I have no further description, at this time

Guido Reni (4 November 1575 – 18 August 1642) was an Italian painter of high-Baroque style. Born in Bologna into a family of musicians, Guido Reni was the son of Daniele Reni and Ginevra de’ Pozzi. As a child of nine, he was apprenticed under the Bolognese studio of Denis Calvaert. When Reni was about twenty years old he migrated to the rising rival studio, named Accademia degli Incamminati (Academy of the "newly embarked", or progressives), led by Lodovico Carracci. He went on to form the nucleus of a prolific and successful school of Bolognese painters who followed Annibale Carracci to Rome. Like many other Bolognese painters, Reni's painting was thematic and eclectic in style. More on Guido Reni

Mary was a first-century Galilean Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph, and the mother of Jesus, according to the canonical gospels and the Quran.

Alfred Stevens, born 1817 - died 1875
The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, at the age of three years, c. 1840 - 1875
Mary lived in the Temple precincts until the age of 14 when she was betrothed to Saint Joseph
Oil on canvas
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

This painting of the Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple is a scaled down replica of Titian’s original, at the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice. It depicts a scene not from the New Testament but the apocryphal Gospel of James in which Mary, Mother of Jesus is brought to the Temple of Jerusalem by her parents in thanks to God for having gifted them a child. More on this work

Alfred Stevens, born 1817 - died 1875
Detail; The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, at the age of three years, c. 1840 - 1875
Oil on canvas
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Alfred George Stevens (30 December 1817 – 1 May 1875), was a British sculptor. 

Stevens spent nine formative years in Italy, travelling there in 1833 at the age of sixteen. There he studied Renaissance painting, copying frescoes in Florence and the works of Andrea del Sarto at Naples, and sketching at Pompeii. He received some formal training at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. Later, in 1841-2, he worked in Rome as an assistant to the major neo-classical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. In 1845, following his return to England, he was appointed as an instructor in painting and ornament at the Government School of Design at Somerset House, where he taught architectural drawing, perspective, modelling and ornamental painting. 

In 1850 he became chief designer to a Sheffield firm, Messrs. Hoole and Robson, who specialised in metalwork and won renown for metalwork exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851. In 1856 Stevens received two major commissions that would occupy him until his death in 1875. More on Alfred George Stevens

El Greco, (1541–1614)
The Annunciation, c.1590 - 1603
Oil on canvas
Height: 1,091 mm (42.95 in); Width: 802 mm (31.57 in)
Ohara Museum of Art, Kurashiki, Japan

Doménikos Theotokópoulos (1541 – 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco; Spanish for "The Greek", was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. The nickname "El Greco" refers both to his Greek origin and Spanish citizenship. The artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters.
 
El Greco was born in Crete, which was at that time part of the Republic of Venice, and the center of Post-Byzantine art. He trained and became a master within that tradition before traveling at age 26 to Venice, as other Greek artists had done. In 1570 he moved to Rome, where he opened a workshop and executed a series of works. During his stay in Italy, El Greco enriched his style with elements of Mannerism and of the Venetian Renaissance. In 1577, he moved to Toledo, Spain, where he lived and worked until his death. In Toledo, El Greco received several major commissions and produced his best-known paintings.
 
El Greco's dramatic and expressionistic style was met with puzzlement by his contemporaries but found appreciation in the 20th century. El Greco is regarded as a precursor of both Expressionism and Cubism, while his personality and works were a source of inspiration for poets and writers. El Greco has been characterized by modern scholars as an artist so individual that he belongs to no conventional school. He is best known for tortuously elongated figures and often fantastic or phantasmagorical pigmentation, marrying Byzantine traditions with those of Western painting. More on El Greco

Mary resided in "her own house" in Nazareth in Galilee, possibly with her parents, and during her betrothal the angel Gabriel announced to her that she was to be the mother of the promised Messiah by conceiving him through the Holy Spirit, and, after initially expressing incredulity at the announcement, she responded, "I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done unto me according to your word." 

Anton Raphael Mengs, (1728–1779)
The Dream of St. Joseph, between circa 1773 and circa 1774
Oil on oak wood
Height: 114 cm (44.8 in); Width: 86 cm (33.8 in)
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

Anton Raphael Mengs (March 22, 1728 – June 29, 1779) was a German painter, active in Dresden, Rome and Madrid, who while painting in the Rococo period of the mid-17th century became one of the precursors to Neoclassical painting that replaced Rococo as the dominant painting style.

In 1749 he was appointed first painter to Frederick Augustus, elector of Saxony, but this did not prevent him from continuing to spend much of his time in Rome. He converted to Catholicism, and in 1754 he became director of the Vatican school of painting. His fresco painting of Parnassus at Villa Albani gained him a reputation as a master painter.

In 1749 Mengs accepted a commission from the Duke of Northumberland to make a copy, in oil on canvas, of Raphael's fresco The School of Athens for his London home. 

On two occasions he accepted invitations from Charles III of Spain to go to Madrid. There he produced some of his best work, most notably the ceiling of the banqueting hall of the Royal Palace of Madrid. After the completion of this work in 1777, Mengs returned to Rome, where he died two years later, in poor circumstances, leaving twenty children, seven of whom were pensioned by the king of Spain. More on Anton Raphael Mengs

Joseph planned to quietly divorce her, but was told her conception was by the Holy Spirit in a dream by "an angel of the Lord"; the angel told him to not hesitate to take her as his wife, which Joseph did, thereby formally completing the wedding rites.

Pieter Brueghel the Elder, (1526/1530–1569)
The People's Census at Bethlehem, c. 1566 / 1566
Oil on oak wood
Height: 115.5 cm (45.4 in); Width: 163.5 cm (64.3 in)
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel) the Elder (c. 1525 – 9 September 1569) was a Netherlandish Renaissance painter and printmaker from Brabant, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes. He is sometimes referred to as the "Peasant Bruegel". From 1559, he dropped the 'h' from his name and signed his paintings as Bruegel.

Bruegel was born in Breda, and entered the Antwerp painters' guild in 1551, it is inferred that he was born between 1525 and 1530. His master was the Antwerp painter Pieter Coecke van Aelst, whose daughter Maria Bruegel married in 1563. 

Bruegel became a free master in the Guild of Saint Luke of Antwerp. In 1552 Bruegel was assigned to paint the rear of two wings of a triptych in Mechelen; the middle panel was painted by Pieter Balten. Between 1552 and 1553 Bruegel traveled to Italy, probably by way of France. He visited Rome, where he met the miniaturist Giulio Clovio, whose will of 1578 lists three paintings by Bruegel. About 1555 Bruegel returned to Antwerp by way of the Alps, which resulted in a number of exquisite drawings of mountain landscapes. These sketches, which form the basis for many of his later paintings, are not records of actual places but "composites" made in order to investigate the organic life of forms in nature.

He received the nickname "Peasant Bruegel" or "Bruegel the Peasant" for his practice of dressing up like a peasant in order to socialize at weddings and other celebrations, thereby gaining inspiration and authentic details for his genre paintings. He died in Brussels on 9 September 1569 and was buried in the Kapellekerk. More on Pieter Brueghel the Elder

A decree of the Roman Emperor Augustus required that Joseph return to his hometown of Bethlehem to register for a Roman census. 

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, (1617–1682)
The Adoration of the Shepherds, circa 1650
Oil on canvas
Height: 187 cm (73.6 in); Width: 228 cm (89.7 in)
Museo del Prado,  Madrid

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (born late December 1617, baptized January 1, 1618 – April 3, 1682) was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children. These lively, realist portraits of flower girls, street urchins, and beggars constitute an extensive and appealing record of the everyday life of his times. More on Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

While he was there with Mary, she gave birth to Jesus; but because there was no place for them in the inn, she used a manger as a cradle.

Waldemar Flaig, (1892–1932)
Star of Bethlehem, c. 1920
Franciscan Museum Villingen

Waldemar Flaig (* 27. January 1892 in Villingen , † 4. April 1932 in Villingen) was a German painter of Expressionism.

Waldemar Flaig grew up in Villingen, attended the art and trade school in Karlsruhe and from 1911–1913 the art academy in Munich .

1915–1918 he took part in the First World War, which he artistically processed in 76 drawings in his war diary. Wounded in 1918, he was released from the hospital in 1919. After a brief interlude as co-owner of the Huber-Flaig arts and crafts workshops in Villingen, he moved to Meersburg in 1920 . From then on he worked there as a freelance artist and was able to record his first commercial and artistic successes in the Lake Constance region.

In the 1920s he sent exhibitions in Konstanz, Baden-Baden, Düsseldorf, Ulm and Dessau, where he also worked as a set designer for the Anhalt State Theater. In Meersburg he continued to spend the summers in addition to many large city stays. He joined the international Lake Constance artists' association Der Kreis around Norbert Jacques and painted portraits of famous contemporaries with whom he was known,.

Flaig's health deteriorated from 1931; During a stay for medical treatment, he died in 1932 in his hometown. More on Waldemar Flaig

Magi arrived at Bethlehem where Jesus and his family were living. Joseph was warned in a dream that King Herod wanted to murder the infant, and the family fled by night to Egypt and stayed there for some time. 

Philipp Otto Runge, (1777–1810)
Rest on the road to Egypt, c. 1805-1806
Oil on canvas
Height: 98 cm (38.5 in); Width: 132 cm (51.9 in)
Kunsthalle Hamburg 

Philipp Otto Runge (23 July 1777 – 2 December 1810) was a Romantic German painter and draughtsman. Although he made a late start to his career and died young, he is considered among the best German Romantic painters.

Runge was born in a family of shipbuilders with ties to the Prussian nobility of Sypniewski / von Runge family. As a sickly child he often missed school and at an early age learned the art of scissor-cut silhouettes from his mother. In 1795 he began a commercial apprenticeship at his older brother Daniel's firm in Hamburg. In 1799 Daniel supported Runge financially to begin study of painting . In 1801 he moved to Dresden to continue his studies. I

In 1808 he intensified his work on color, including making disk color mixture experiments. He also published written versions of two local folk fairy tales In 1810 in Hamburg. In 1810, ill with tuberculosis, Runge painted another self-portrait as well as portraits of his family and brother Daniel. 

Runge was of a mystical, deeply Christian turn of mind, and in his artistic work he tried to express notions of the harmony of the universe through symbolism of colour, form, and numbers. 

In 1803 Runge had large-format engravings made of the drawings of the Times of the Day series that became commercially successful.

Runge was also one of the best German portraitists of his period; several examples are in Hamburg. His style was rigid, sharp, and intense, at times almost naïve. More on Philipp Otto Runge

After Herod's death in 4 BC, they returned to Nazareth in Galilee, rather than Bethlehem, because Herod's son Archelaus was ruler of Judaea.

After Peter Paul Rubens, (Flemish, 1577–1640)
The Return of the Holy Family from Egypt , ca. 1600–1699
Oil on copper
41.8 x 31.2 cm. (16.5 x 12.3 in.)
Kaluga Art Museum

Sir Peter Paul Rubens (28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish Baroque painter. A proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasized movement, colour, and sensuality, Rubens is well known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.
In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp that produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically educated humanist scholar and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV of Spain and Charles I of England.  More Sir Peter Paul Rubens

Mary was present when, at her suggestion, Jesus worked his first miracle during a wedding at Cana by turning water into wine. 

Maerten de Vos, (1532–1603)
The Marriage at Cana, between 1596 and 1597
Oil on panel
Height: 268 cm (105.5 in); Width: 235 cm (92.5 in)
Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp, Belgium 

Maerten de Vos, Maerten de Vos the Elder or Marten de Vos (1532 – 4 December 1603) was a Flemish painter mainly of history paintings and portraits. He became, together with the brothers Ambrosius Francken I and Frans Francken I, one of the leading history painters in the Spanish Netherlands after Frans Floris’ career slumped in the second half of the sixteenth century as a result of the Iconoclastic fury of the Beeldenstorm.

De Vos was a prolific draughtsman and produced numerous designs for the Antwerp printers. More on Marten de Vos

Subsequently, there are events when Mary is present along with James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas, called Jesus' brothers, and Salome and a Mary or a Salome and an Anna, sisters. 

Gabriel Wüger, (1829–1893) 
Crucifixion, Stabat Mater, c. 1868
Virgin Mary, Mary of Clopas and Mary Magdalene
Oil on canvas
Beuron Archabbey and the Beuron Art School, Germany

Gabriel Wüger (2 December 1829–1892) was an artist and a Benedictine monk. He was one of the founders of the Beuron Art School in Germany in the late nineteenth century.

In 1863 Wüger travelled to Rome to work with the artists of the Nazarene movement. Like the Nazarenes, these artists who were to become known as the “Beuronese” were in search of natural simplicity and clarity with an emphasis on essentials and conscious neglect of accidentals and details. They chose as their guiding principles the use of plain backgrounds and basic colours, a limited use of perspective and a repetition of decoration.

Lenz and Wüger thought of forming a monastic community of artists. They believed that in order to make sacred art one should lead a Catholic life in community. In 1868 in Rome, they met Maurus Wolter, who had similar artistic aspirations for his young Benedictine monastery at Beuron. Maurus Wolter wanted his monastery to play a role in the revival of Church art just as it was beginning to do in the revival of Gregorian chant.

Lenz approached Princess Katherina von Hohenzollern, and produced an architectural design for the building which was accepted and built. In September 1868 he went to Rome to recruit Wüger.

Wüger died at the monastery of Monte Cassino in 1892. More on Gabriel Wüger

Mary is also depicted as being present among the women at the crucifixion during the crucifixion standing near "the disciple whom Jesus loved" along with Mary of Clopas and Mary Magdalene.  This representation is called a Stabat Mater. 

Enguerrand Quarton, (1411–1466)
Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, circa 1460
Tempera on wood
Height: 162 cm (63.7 in); Width: 218 cm (85.8 in)
Louvre Museum, Paris

Enguerrand Quarton (or Charonton) (c. 1410 – c. 1466) was a French painter and manuscript illuminator whose few surviving works are among the first masterpieces of a distinctively French style, very different from either Italian or Early Netherlandish painting. Six paintings by him are documented, of which only two survive, and in addition the Louvre now follows most art historians in attributing to him the famous Avignon Pietà. His two documented works are the remarkable Coronation of the Virgin (1453–54, Villeneuve-les-Avignon) and The Virgin of Mercy (1452, Musée Condé, Chantilly). Two smaller altarpieces are also attributed to him. More on Enguerrand Quarton

While not recorded in the Gospel accounts, Mary cradling the dead body of her son is a common motif in art, called a "pietà" or "pity".

Workshop of Carlo Saraceni, (Italian, 1579–1620)
Death of the Virgin
Oil on copper
37.5 x 28.8 cm. (14.8 x 11.3 in.)
Private collection

Sold for EUR 75,000.- in Oct 2015

Carlo Saraceni (1579 – 16 June 1620) was an Italian early-Baroque painter, whose reputation as a "first-class painter of the second rank" was improved with the publication of a modern monograph in 1968.

He moved to Rome in 1598, joining the Accademia di San Luca in 1607. He never visited France, though he spoke fluent French and had French followers. His paintings, however, was influenced at first by the densely forested, luxuriantly enveloping landscape settings for human figures of Adam Elsheimer.

When Caravaggio's notorious Death of the Virgin was rejected in 1606 as an altarpiece suitable for a chapel of Santa Maria della Scala, it was Saraceni who provided the acceptable substitute. He was influenced by Caravaggio's dramatic lighting, monumental figures, naturalistic detail, and momentary action.

Saraceni's style matured rapidly between 1606 and 1610, and the next decade gave way to his fully mature works, synthesizing Caravaggio and the Venetians.

In 1620 he returned to Venice, where he died in the same year. More on Carlo Saraceni

Her death is not recorded in the scriptures, but Catholic and Orthodox tradition and doctrine have her assumed into Heaven. 

Juan Martín Cabezalero, (1633–1673)
The Assumption of the Virgin, circa 1665
Oil on canvas
Height: 237 cm (93.3 in); Width: 169 cm (66.5 in)
Museo del Prado, Madrid

The work represents the assumption of the Virgin Mary body and soul to Heaven.

Juan Martín Cabezalero (1633–1673) was a Spanish draftsman and painter. Born in Almadén, he studied under Juan Carreño de Miranda, court painter to Charles II of Spain; Cabezalero lived at Carreño de Miranda's house until 1666. Both he and Carreño were influenced by Van Dyck.

Few works by Cabezalero have survived. His surviving works include his St Jerome (1666, Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, Dallas) and the Assumption of the Virgin (ca. 1670; Madrid, Prado). The latter had been formerly attributed to Mateo Cerezo, also a pupil of Carreño de Miranda.

Antonio Palomino praises Cabezalero's modest, studious nature and laments that he died young. More on Juan Martín Cabezalero


Belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary is a dogma of the Catholic Church, in the Latin and Eastern Catholic Churches alike, and is believed as well by the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church, and parts of the Anglican Communion and Continuing Anglican movement.

Mary has been venerated since early Christianity, and is considered by millions to be the most meritorious saint of the religion. She is said to have miraculously appeared to believers many times over the centuries. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches believe that Mary, as mother of Jesus, is the Theotokos (Mother of God, God-bearer). There is significant diversity in the Marian beliefs and devotional practices of major Christian traditions. The Catholic Church holds distinctive Marian dogmas, namely her status as the Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her perpetual virginity, and her Assumption into heaven. Many Protestants minimize Mary's role within Christianity, basing their argument on the lack of biblical support for any beliefs other than the virgin birth. Mary also has the highest position in Islam among all women. She is mentioned in the Quran more often than in the New Testament, where two of the longer chapters of the Quran are devoted to her and her family. More on Mary the Blessed Virgin




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