What’s your favorite piece of religious art?

I tend to gravitate toward Marian art.

My favorite religious artist is William-Adolphe Bouguereau. His depictions of Our Lady are not just sentimentally pretty. His brushstrokes are powerful and delicate. Perhaps his power and delicacy is what mirrors Mary’s delicate power so accurately. I can imagine graces flowing through his fingertips, into the bristles of the brush and spreading over the canvas.

Vierge Consolatrice by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Here’s my favorite painting by Bouguereau. It brings tears. I think it’s the most powerful Catholic painting of all time:

It’s the Vierge Consolatrice in French or “Virgin Consolatrix.” She is the Consolatress. I try not to look at this painting too much because it overwhelms me.

A mother casts her depressed frame on the lap of Mary. She is still young. She is still pretty. Her dead three-year-old lies pale and cold on the floor. She wears a dark dress of mourning, but she is unveiled and tormented. Bare foot and bare armed. Her breasts are directed to the baby she suckled (knowing Bouguereau’s style and personality, this detail is intentional).

You might expect Mary to be whispering quietly into the ear of the distraught mother. You might expect for Mary to be petting the hair of the tormented woman. Instead, the Mother of God has an expression on her face that I have seen a few times on my wife’s face and upon the countenance of other impressive and powerful women.

The expression is mixture between the rage of a mama bear and the tenderness of a school girl. I’ve seen this look on my wife’s face when her baby is hurt very badly and something needs to be done now. Purity blended with power. Bouguereau is so good, it almost looks like a photograph.

This expression is the female face of power. Her eyes. Her mouth. It looks like an angry compassion, but completely calm. She says with her face, “This has to stop right now and nobody on earth, and no demon, and no creature better get in my way. “My little one needs me.”

Her hands are raised to Christ. You can tell what she is paying: “My Son. Bring comfort.”

Of course, Mary watched her innocent Son die cruelly outside of Jerusalem. She is the perfect lap to cry on.

The face is incredible but there are a few more details to note:

• Mary is wearing a dark color that matches the mother’s dress of mourning.
• Mary’s foot seems to be touching the child – a moment of connection.
• The roses seem to have fallen from the hands of the mother. These are prayers of the mother to Mary that have fallen upon the child.
• The child is spread out on (or in) the mantle of Mary.
• The inscription beneath the child reads: Mater Afflictorum or Mother of the Afflicted

The artist by these symbols is saying that the child is saved and protected even though the mother cannot see it. The child is in the fold of Mary’s mantle and covered with roses. The child is in bliss. The mother is the focus of the Virgin’s prayers.

[reminder]What is your favorite piece of religious art? Why?[/reminder]