Virgin And Child Enthroned Analysis

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The Virgin and Child Enthroned by the Master of the Embroidered Foliage from 1500 depicts the Virgin Mary sitting in a walled garden with the infant Jesus on her lap. Separated from the surrounding landscape by an embroidered tapestry, the Virgin’s red cloak commands the attention of the viewer. With this visual basis, The Virgin and Child Enthroned portrays the Virgin Mary and Christ Child as both the fertile foundation and timeless icon of the Christian Church.
The Virgin Mary serves as the connection between the fertility of the paradoxical garden and the divine structure of the golden tapestry. Wearing an ornate and naturalistic cloak, which conceals the majority of her physical features, the Virgin becomes the pyramidal anchor of the …show more content…

Wearing an off-white tunic, the Christ Child sits on the altar of his mother’s lap in preparation for his sacrifice to reconcile the sins of humanity. The Virgin Mary, who was believed to understand her son’s fate, tilts her head towards the child and looks down in contemplation to indicate her knowledge. Christ’s sacrifice, celebrated as the principle sacrament of mass in the Eucharist, forms the foundation of Christian ideology. Thus the child serves with the Virgin Mary to depict the genesis and foundation of the church. In addition, the Christ Child extends the image into perpetual time by flipping through the Book of Hours, a devotional book used for prayer at specific times of the day. In other words, by blessing the Book of Hours with his left hand, the Christ Child declares the timelessness of image shown in The Virgin and Child …show more content…

Bartolomeo also establishes the foreground with a vertical tapestry and shows the Virgin adoring her child in contemplation; however, the tapestry lacks the pomegranate and ornate decoration of the original work and the admired child has been removed from his mother’s lap and placed on a stone ledge. And although the Virgin Mary remains the pyramidal anchor of the work, Bartolomeo only paints the upper half of the body and diminishes the structural effect. These differences both highlight the relationship between the Virgin and her child Bartolomeo portrays and the unique characteristics of The Virgin and Child Enthroned by the Master of the Embroidered Foliage. For by expanding the context in which the Virgin represents the structural pyramid of a work, the Master’s emphasis on structural foundation and connection between earth and heaven becomes increasingly clear. In other words, only by examining an outside work does the Virgin’s naturalistic cloak connecting the fertile garden with the heavenly tapestry dominate the viewing experience. In addition, the lack of urbanization in the background of The Virgin Adoring the Child emphasizes the timelessness of the original work. For with the exception of an abandoned

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