Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Laib was a German painter who spent most of his career in Austria. Proof that he came to Salzburg at an early age is suggested by the stylistic affinity of many of his works with Salzburg...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! While Mary is most often depicted wearing a blue shawl, Ethiopian artists in the mid-16th century began painting the shawl red, a practice that related to their study of Cretan icons. The Ge'ez inscriptions...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! This is an important Ethiopian Orthodox icon that was once owned by a parsonage. On the proper right panel it depicts the gruesome scene of St. George being chopped into pieces below the twelve apostles and...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! This image shows the Holy Family with Mary Magdalene. The Christ Child extends his arm to Mary Magdalene who kneels by the child. On the floor is a skull (which represents Christ’s victory over death)...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! The Virgin Mary, hieratic and still, looks out toward the viewer while gently supporting Christ with her left arm. The smiling infant gazes lovingly toward her and playfully stretches out his arm, grabbing the edge of...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! In this painting Gentile da Fabriano combined several different devotional and biblical subjects: the Madonna of Humility, the Nativity, and the Annunciation to the Shepherds. As the Madonna of Humility, the Virgin sits upon the ground,...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! In his right hand, the Christ child grasps a stem of roses. The beauty and fragrance of roses symbolize heaven, while their thorny stems allude to the crown of thorns and Christ's suffering. The...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! According to the Gospel of Matthew, three Magi, guided by a star, found the newborn Christ and laid gifts before him. Artists throughout the 15th century elaborated considerably upon this biblical account, devoting particular attention to...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! In this painting, the Archangel Gabriel proclaims the Virgin’s destiny as the mother of Christ. The setting is an ordinary house, but simple objects have symbolic meaning. The lilies represent the Virgin’s purity; the...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! This central panel from an altarpiece shows the Madonna seated on a throne with the infant Christ, surrounded by kneeling angels and six-winged seraphim. Below is an image of the dead Christ flanked by the Virgin...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Bernardino di Betto, called Pinturicchio, is said to have acquired his nickname ("little painter") because of his small stature, and used it to sign some of his paintings. Born in Perugia, the provincial capital...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! As a Dominican monk, Fra Angelico was not subject to the strict rules of the Florentine painters’ guild. He was thus free to develop a more personal style. This combined strong realism and solid forms with...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Seated on an elaborate throne, the Madonna’s weighty majesty emphasizes her role as the Queen of Heaven as she gazes at her infant son. The child, in turn, stares at the viewer. To Christ’s...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! The artist has set Christ's birth in a ruined stable, witnessed by shepherds and angels. The candle Joseph holds symbolizes the supremacy of Christ's divine radiance over earthly light. Beyond the overgrown...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! The symbolic family tree of Jesus is depicted here. The tree grows from the body of the sleeping Jesse. He was the ancestor of a family of kings that, according to tradition, included Solomon, David, and...
A devout woman, shown at lower right, is presented by saints and an angel to the central Virgin and Child. In clockwise order from her is Saint Lucy, identified by the cauldron and sword at her feet; Saint Agnes, by the lamb; Saint Scholastica, by the dove she holds; and...
This image, which has always been a popular motif in Christian art, shows the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus, John the Baptist on the left, and Saint Francis of Assisi on the right. The Virgin wears a bright red dress—likely representing the Holy Spirit or presence of God....
Although he was reportedly a prolific painter, this panel is one of only seven paintings by Martin Schongauer in existence today. It belongs to a group of four Andachtsbilder, or devotional paintings, created near the end of his life. In his engravings Schongauer already had explored the theme of the...
This loosely painted sketch is the preliminary design for an altarpiece in the Church of Saint Ulrich, Vienna. Mary and Joseph have brought the infant Jesus to the temple to be inducted into the Jewish faith; the aged priest Simeon cradles the infant in his arms, turning his gaze to...
Little is known about the life and career of Sint Jans. He seems to have been born in Haarlem in Holland in the northern Low Countries where he may have been attached to the Knights of Saint John as a lay brother, and likely produced an altarpiece for that order....
Correggio spent most of his brief career in the northern Italian city of Parma. Removed from the great centers of Renaissance art, he was able to create a remarkably innovative body of work. This intimate devotional panel is a product of the artist’s youth. Here Correggio revealed his own...
A Madonna is a representation of Mary, either alone or with her child Jesus. These images are central icons for both the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The word is from Italian ma donna 'my lady'. Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_(art)#:~:text=A%20Madonna%20(Italian%...
Ittenbach is considered one of the leading religious painters in 19th century Germany. A devout Roman Catholic, he traveled throughout Germany, painting altarpieces and artworks intended for church decoration. Popular among the German Catholic nobility, Ittenbach painted in a precise, realistic style influenced by Netherlandish and Italian Renaissance art, continuing...
The perfectly round form, called a tondo, became popular during the 1440s. Made for domestic settings instead of churches, the circular format challenged the artist to create a harmonious, balanced composition within this more difficult shape. The attribution has been a matter of debate. Botticelli often collaborated with students, including...
