We're in the Louvre and we're looking at a painting by Raphael called
La Belle Jardiniere, and its a lovely Raphael Madonna, and child
with the infant Saint John the Baptist in that pyramid
composition that we often associate with the high Renascence
What's interesting is the virgin Mary is not in a religious enviroment
we see no archway, and she's got no throne
if we argue if she had a throne at all it would be
the throne of nature. She sits on a rock in a field with
a beautiful atmoshphere and persecptive behind her creating this
lovely verdant enviroment. As we look down
at the foreground we see plants and perhaps the edge of
a pond, and little flowers, the loveliest passages to me are
the way that Christ on the left, stands on his mother's
foot, really showing that kind of dependence on his mother
and yet also a growing sense of independence as he seeks to take the book
out of her hands, and looks up at her.
And of course, the content of that the book foretells his own demise
and it foretells the crucifiction. And the look on Mary's face is one that suggests
that she knows this, she's looking at him in a sense gaged wheter or not
he's ready for that knowledge. She puts her right arm around him protecting him
and, seems to hesitate for a moment with her left hand
whether to allow him to take that book, or not.
Same with John the Baptist who kneels in prayer towards Christ
is on-- a very graceful pose,he kneels down on his right knee
tilts his neck up, and looks up at Christ. We have that high Renascence gracefulness
and ideal beuaty. Let's look for just a moment at
the gazes in the painting. I think you're right to start with John the Baptist,
and his eyes gazing up at Christ, who in turns body and face moves up to Mary
Mary then returns that gaze and sends our gaze back down
to Christ. So, everyone's gaze is really focused on Christ
And now we're sorta in the middle of that triangle
as we watch them look at each other. And Mary is ideally
beautiful and we have only the faintest outline of a halo
that halo is disappearing as we enter the high Renascence, because
the figures exude a kind of divinity by their ideal beauty.
We don't need that symbol of a halo anymore. And for Raphael, its nature that
takes on that role, no longer that stage props of divinity necessary as you said,
but its the landscape itself, its god's world, that he has created
that is in an expression of divinity, and its beauty itself that is the expression
of divinity here. Mary's beauty, Christ's beauty, and even John's beauty.