Madonna of Humility
Giovanni di Paolo, Tempera on Panel c. 1442,
Boston Museum
of Fine Arts
In a gallery full of paintings at the Boston Museum of Fine
Arts, this one captured my attention and imagination immediately. A little
research and some prayerful reflection drew me to this Madonna and Child even
more. Giovanni di Paolo was a Sienese painter who is best known for his
illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy.
Mary is central to Dante’s conception of heaven and hell,
and the Florentine poet’s influence can be seen in this painting. Notice how di
Paolo situates Mary and Jesus at the base of a mountain and divides his
composition into a series of “rings.” At
the top of the painting, the Holy Spirit “hovers” as in the first verses of
Genesis, and di Paolo’s strange mountain peaks remind us of those wind-swept
waters that precede creation. As we come down the mountain, we see the world
gradually taking shape from barren earth to forest to tilled fields, roads and
towns. In the middle ground of the painting we encounter a dense orchard of
fruit trees of every kind. Have we reached the garden of Paradise?
Following his Florentine guide, di Paolo places the Virgin
and Child at the center of his new Eden. We find the new Adam and Eve in a
circular clearing filled with flowers. Seated on the ground with her head
uncovered, the new Eve’s humility overturns the proud disobedience of our first
parents. The serpentine folds of Mary’s cloak remind us that she will strike the
ancient tempter. In the lap of his mother, Jesus, the new Adam, is charmingly
and disarmingly naked. Truly God and truly man, the all-powerful Word of God
spoken from all eternity assumes the weakest of human flesh. As Mary enfolds
her child in her arms and as Jesus reaches out to his mother, their tender yet tense
expressions tell us that they are thinking of another hill and another garden
and of the price that will be paid to restore this paradise.
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