religious life - Worship of the saints - p1

Worship of the Virgin

Devotion to the Virgin has always been one of the main elements of medieval piety.
It appears in various ways and gives birth to various images.

Scenes of Christ's life

The faithful first see Mary as Christ's mother, and she appears in many scenes of his life, especially in his Childhood.

In the Adoration of the Wise Men, the Virgin constitute in a way the throne of the Child on her knees.

She introduces him to the oldest king, on his knees and kissing Jesus' foot.

The attitudes of the two other kings, representing two other ages of life, have also been imposed by the iconographic tradition. They face each other, carrying their presents, and one of them shows with his raised arm the star that has led them.

The description of rich costumes as those shown in this scene was also quite usual.

Mary plays a central part in the Flight to Egypt.

She is carrying the Child held in position by his swaddling clothes.
Above her, an angel is lowering the branches of a date tree so that she can pick some fruits.

Another miracle (represented in the left part of the picture), that of the wheat sown in the morning and ripe in the evening, allows the peasant questioned by Herod's soldiers to discourage the pursuers.

Those two anecdotal episodes are narrated in the apocryphal Gospel by the « pseudo- Matthew ».

Worship of the Virgin

Devotion to the Virgin has always been one of the main elements of medieval piety.
It appears in various ways and gives birth to various images.

Scenes of Christ's life

The faithful first see Mary as Christ's mother, and she appears in many scenes of his life, especially in his Childhood.

In the Adoration of the Wise Men, the Virgin constitute in a way the throne of the Child on her knees.

She introduces him to the oldest king, on his knees and kissing Jesus' foot.

The attitudes of the two other kings, representing two other ages of life, have also been imposed by the iconographic tradition. They face each other, carrying their presents, and one of them shows with his raised arm the star that has led them.

The description of rich costumes as those shown in this scene was also quite usual.

Mary plays a central part in the Flight to Egypt.

She is carrying the Child held in position by his swaddling clothes.
Above her, an angel is lowering the branches of a date tree so that she can pick some fruits.

- Scenes from the Virgin's life -

Scenes of intercession -

Scenes with a dogmatic content -

New themes in the late XVth century -

Worship of the Virgin

Devotion to the Virgin has always been one of the main elements of medieval piety. It appears in various ways and gives birth to various images.

Scenes of Christ's life

The faithful first see Mary as Christ's mother, and she appears in many scenes of his life, especially in his Childhood.

In the Adoration of the Wise Men, the Virgin constitute in a way the throne of the Child on her knees. She introduces him to the oldest king, on his knees and kissing Jesus' foot.

The attitudes of the two other kings, representing two other ages of life, have also been imposed by the iconographic tradition. They face each other, carrying their presents, and one of them shows with his raised arm the star that has led them.

The description of rich costumes as those shown in this scene was also quite usual.

Mary plays a central part in the Flight to Egypt.

She is carrying the Child held in position by his swaddling clothes. Above her, an angel is lowering the branches of a date tree so that she can pick some fruits.

- Scenes from the Virgin's life -

Scenes of intercession -

Scenes with a dogmatic content -

New themes in the late XVth century -

Devotion to the Virgin has always been one of the main elements of medieval piety.
It appears in various ways and gives birth to various images.

In the Adoration of the Wise Men, the Virgin constitute in a way the throne of the Child on her knees.

She introduces him to the oldest king, on his knees and kissing Jesus' foot.

She is carrying the Child held in position by his swaddling clothes.
Above her, an angel is lowering the branches of a date tree so that she can pick some fruits.