Italian, North, The Madonna and Child

The Virgin is the primary focus of this large devotional picture. She is seated on the ground in a rural landscape outside a town, as the ‘Madonna of Humility’. Her blue gown and cloak form a strong, stable pyramidal shape in the centre of the composition. The Christ child lies across her lap, and looks up at her, his hand raised as though trying to touch her face. The Virgin looks down tenderly at her son and holds his foot. A bright burst of golden light between the stormy clouds frames the Virgin’s head like a halo. Our viewpoint is very low, so we are also looking up at the Virgin, like Christ. The group of the Virgin and Child is probably derived from an influential fresco by Titian in the Doge’s Palace, Venice. The fresco was painted in about 1523 but was mostly destroyed in a devastating fire of 1574 – the part with the Madonna still survives.

The setting, especially the skyscape, is used to reinforce the mood of the painting and is integrated very effectively with the central figures of the Virgin and Child. This technique, of using the setting to reflect and enhance the drama or mood of the scene, was particularly developed in Venetian painting by Titian. The landscape is very atmospheric and appealing, including tiny figures going about their daily lives, unaware of the holy figures in their midst. To the left, a mill with a waterwheel stands beside the river, along which white swans glide. A countryman carries a pack on his shoulders suspended from a long pole; he is dressed like the rural workers in the Venetian Labours of the Months. A woman draws water from a well and pours it into a pail. On the right a knight in armour rides along the city road, while figures on foot move towards the city gates. Unlike the gentle landscape to the left, the city is depicted with a precipitous perspective, which draws our eyes along the street. A multitude of towers and buildings rise up above the city walls, including a cathedral tower and the octagonal roof of a baptistery. Above this, the golden light of dawn breaks, gilding the edges of the blue-grey clouds and outlining the Madonna and Child who inhabit and dominate this landscape, a permanent presence and reminder of heaven on earth. The atmospheric effects in the landscape that stretches from the river valley in the foreground to the hazy blue mountains in the distance are achieved through a technique known as aerial perspective, which mimics the way that colour and focus change when looking through air into the distance.

We do not know for certain who painted this picture. In the past it has been attributed to an unknown artist from Brescia, to Giorgione and to a follower of Titian.