.... Our theme image is entitled "Woman Reads As Baby Sleeps" It might seem like a "nice" bland and uncomplicated image but, believe me, there is a lot to discuss. Let's just see where Sepians go with it!
The earliest images of mother and child found in the Catacombs of Rome, date from the Early Christian Church. After Mary was proclaimed Theotokos, Godbearer, it became common to use her image in paintings and sculptures.
Mary and child were the most used image through the Byzantine, Medieval and Early Renaissance for over a thousand years. Duccio, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Giovanni Bellini, Caravaggio, Rubens, have turned their artistic skills to create Mother and child images.
Italian Mother and Baby, living in tenements of New York. He captured the misery of urban poverty as well as the tenacity of life. This forlorn mother with her swaddled baby is evocative of Mary and of many paintings of "Madonna and Child."
In the early 1960s, myself and my firstborn daughter Marie-Louise.
Photo/text Ts
Some very significant pictures here. A nice match-up.
ReplyDeleteLa Nightingale, thank you.
DeletePerfection! The image of mother and child were perhaps mankind's first iconic art form. I just finished a biography of Michelangelo that described how paintings of the Madonna and Child became popular with the elite who wanted them for their private chapels.
ReplyDeleteI like your script font. How did you do that? It's not available under my draftblogger editor. One small complaint is that the avocado green link text turns neon lime when hovering the mouse and becomes unreadable.
Mike, thank you I did not notice it and will change the colour. Customize the template and the fonts come up, click advanced, mine is "Homemade Apple" but there are others similar ones.
DeleteBeautiful images of mother and child abound but the one of you is tmy favourite! I’m sorry to disagree with Mike, and it must be my eyesight, but I find the script very hard to read, especially in other’s comments, where I can’t seem to enlarge it. I hope the feedback is useful.
ReplyDeleteLittle Nell; I agree it is hard to read, must change it to a more readable script. Thank you for your feedback.
DeleteSuch poverty and pathos shown in that photograph of mother and child in the New York tenement, and a sweet photo of you and your daughter in orange tints, circa 1970s or perhaps 80s I imagine.
ReplyDeleteJo, thank you, in the 1960s. Colour was the news in photography. Jacob Riis was famous for his photos especially of the poverty of children. His photos started the change of laws to better the lot of working children, who were put to work at a tender age of 4 years. It was not the good old times for many poor kids.
DeleteMany years ago I was at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California. Everything was going along fine until my friend and I came upon a Madonna and child painting. We were speechless. The baby was hideous. We renamed it "The Birth of the Bufo" because the baby had eyes like a frog. We still laugh about it. Ugliest classic piece of art I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteIt was a completely different style of painting, some to our view quite ugly. Styles change.
DeleteSuch a sobering photo of the Italian mother. I liked the contrast of your own photo with the other and then with the Madonna.
ReplyDeletePauleen, yes it is horrendous how poor some people were and no social lifeline.
DeleteIt was really "eat or die."