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| Boccaccio Boccaccino, Birth of the Virgin Italian, 1514-1515 Cremona, Cathedral |
The Birth of Mary is commemorated by the Church on September 8th. Also known as the Birth of the Virgin, it was a popular subject in medieval and Renaissance art. In many ways its iconography resembles that of the birth of St. John the Baptist. It takes place in comfortable, even somewhat exalted, surroundings, for Joachim is represented as a man of substance. He has herds and flocks and, according to the Golden Legend, when he and Anne married they were sufficiently wealthy to be able to live on only one-third of their substance. The other two-thirds they divided as follows “one part was for the temple, that other they gave to the poor and pilgrims”.1
Among the artists who have pictured the birth of Mary were:
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| Cavallini, Birth of the Virgin Italian Mosaic, c.1291 Rome, S. Maria in Trastevere |
Pietro Cavallini, who was an older contemporary of Giotto, worked in both mosaic and fresco in Rome. His mosaics of the Life of the Virgin in Santa Maria in Trastevere represent the moment when the severe Byzantine style begins to change into a more lifelike and relaxed style. In this domestic scene, two maids work at bathing the baby in the foreground, while in the background, two more place food and drink on a draped bedside table for Anne, who reclines on an upholstered couch.
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| Giotto, Birth of the Virgin Italian, 1304-1306 Padua, Arena Chapel |
Giotto’s image, from the Arena Chapel, shows several activities associated with the birth. In the foreground, two maids finish cleaning and wrapping the baby. In the background, the swaddled Mary is presented by an attendant to her mother, who lies in a curtained bed. At the left of the scene a neighbor appears at the doorway, handing a gift to one of the maids.
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| Pietro Lorenzetti, Birth of the Virgin Italian, c.1342 Siena, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo |
Like Giotto, his Sienese contemporary, Pietro Lorenzetti, set his vision of the birth of Mary in a sort of dissected building, so that we see interior and exterior at the same time. In Lorenzetti’s image we seem to see things from another interior room separated by columns from the main actions. The “columns” are actually the frames of the central panel and two wings of the triptych. The “room” containing the birth event fills the central panel and fills the right wing as well. The bed on which Anne reclines extends into the right wing where two attendants and a portion of the visitor who talks to the new mother in the central panel are also seen. In the left wing Joachim, who is sitting on a bench with a visitor receives word that he has become a father.
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| Pietro Uccello, Birth of the Virgin Italian, , c.1435 Prato, Duomo |
In the 1430’s Paolo Uccello expanded on the theme of busy-ness surrounding the birth. Here, in the foreground, maids attend to the baby, while a group of elegantly clad visitors satisfy their curiosity. In the background, St. Anne is seen washing her hands in basin, while a maid pours water, and another maid brings a tray with carafes of water and wine and something to eat. At the left another maid, carrying two dishes, hurries down an outside staircase.
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Michele Giambono, Birth of the Virgin Italian, 1431-1433 Venice, San Marco, Muscoli Chapel |
In the north of Italy, the Venetian, Michele Giambono, presents the scene in a replica of a Venetian palazzo and includes Joachim as an observer, along with servants and visitors.
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| Fra Carnevale, Birth of the Virgin Italian, 1467 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
Fra Carnevale (now identified as Bartolomeo di Giovanni Corradini) expands the scene and its activities still further, in one of the panels formerly known as the Barberini Panels and now divided between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
In the Metropolitan panel the scene of the Birth of the Virgin takes place in what can only be described as a palace, presented in intricate detail and peopled by many figures: servants, elegant visitors, huntsmen. The principal figures of Mary and Anne are almost lost in the crowd!
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| Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child With Scenes from the Life of St. Anne Italian, 1452 Florence, Pitti Palace |
In the early 1450s Fra Filippo Lippi combined scenes from the life of St. Anne with a painting of the Madonna and Child. Mary’s own birth is shown over her right shoulder, while the meeting at the Golden Gate appears over her left.
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| Domenico Ghirlandaio, Birth of the Virgin Italian, 1486-1490 Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Tornabuoni Chapel |
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| Albrecht Durer, Birth of the Virgin from Life of the Virgin German, 1503 |
In Germany, Albrecht Dürer, in his 1503 Life of the Virgin, presented a crowded scene where a few of the attendants appear to have celebrated too enthusiastically. Durer adds one powerful angelic observer.
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| Andrea del Sarto, Birth of the Virgin Italian, 1514 Florence, Santissima Annunziata |
In 1514 Andrea del Sarto produced a more sober version of the subject. His design harks back to the Ghirlandaio. Although the distractions are fewer, the visitors are still the central figures in the composition. The angelic observers are confined to hovering near the ceiling or sitting on the bed canopy.
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| Albrecht Altdorfer, Birth of the Virgin German, 1525 Munich, Alte Pinakothek |
In the years just after the 1517 beginning of the Protestant Reformation Albrecht Altdorfer produced a curious image where Anne’s bed and the Mary’s cradle seem to have been set up in a building that bears a striking resemblance to a church with both Gothic and Romanesque architectural features. Above their heads a crowd of celebrating angels wheel exultantly.
Following the upheaval caused by the Reformation, the Council of Trent was called to reform the Church. It met in three sessions between 1545 and 1563. Its decrees prepared the Church to respond effectively to the Protestant challenge, but they also eliminated much of the old cultural atmosphere. The old extra-Biblical tales and fantasy-filled legends ceased to have influence and art became more realistic.
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| Carlo Saraceni, Birth of the Virgin Italian, 1616-1619 Paris, Musee du Louvre |
An early example is Carlo Saraceni’s Birth of the Virgin, a smallish painting on copper, now in the Louvre, dated between 1616 and 1619.
Saraceni is one of the painters that form a bridge between Mannerism and the Baroque. His image of the birth takes place in semi-darkness in a large structure that could be a palace or a church, but is bare of extra ornament. However, a heavenly apparition of celebrating angels appears in the upper left.
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Simon Voet, Birth of the Virgin
French, 1620
Rome, S. Francesco a Ripa
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By 1620, when Simon Vouet, a French artist living in Rome, painted his Birth of the Virgin for the Roman church of San Francesco a Ripa all inessential elements had gone. The large figures of the midwife and attendants occupy almost the entire visual space. The partial figure of St. Anne is barely visible at the upper right corner of the picture. Another figure with her may be Joachim or may be a servant. It is too difficult to see to be sure.
Later in the 17th century the mood lightens greatly as, for the first time the birth is attended by angels. Whereas, in earlier pictures, the angelic witnesses were content to witness from above, these angels come right down to earth and participate.
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| Le Nain Brothers, Birth of the Virgin French, c.1645 Paris, Notre-Dame |
In the Birth of the Virgin by the Le Nain Brothers from about 1645 three angels on the ground peer curiously at the baby or comment to each other while Joachim gazes at his new daughter. However, one small angel is taking an active role in events by warming a cloth by the fire. Saint Anne is seen in the background talking to a visitor.
In Spain, Bartolomé Murillo went even further by incorporating two helpful angelic children. They have brought a basket of cloths to the servants and one angel is holding one up inspection. Meanwhile, the other angel is being investigated by a small and curious dog. Saints Anne and Joachim are seen conversing peacefully in the background.
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| Bartolomeo Murillo, Birth of the Virgin Spanish, 1660 Paris, Musee du Louvre |
1. The Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints. Compiled by Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, 1275. First Edition Published 1470. Englished by William Caxton, First Edition 1483, Edited by F.S. Ellis, Temple Classics, 1900 (Reprinted 1922, 1931.), Vol. 5, pages .
© M. Duffy, 2011
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