THE IMMACULATECONCEPTIONBYMURILLO

Inthe 17th century the Spanish Inquisition appointed certainfamiliareswhose warrant ran:

‘We give him commission and charge him hence forward that he take particular care to inspect and visit all paintings of sacred subjects which may stand in shops or in public places; if he finds anything to object to in them he is to take the picture before the Lords of the Inquisition.’

Murillo, painting for the Church in Seville, the most orthodox city of Spain, may therefore be reckoned correct in his method of presenting sacred subjects. At the period in which he painted, the particular form of Madonna picture most often ordered by the Spanish Church, was that known as the ‘Immaculate Conception.’

The sinless birth of the Virgin was a dogma that had been adopted enthusiastically by the Spanish, so much so that Philip III and Philip IV sent special embassies to Rome to obtain more explicit papal recognition of the doctrine. It did not, however, become an article of faith till 1854 and, as a subject, it is chiefly confined to the Spanish School.

The scheme of the picture is invariably taken from the Revelation of St. John.

‘And there appeared a great wonder in Heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.’

It was usual to add a group ofputtiabout the Virgin’s feet (her feet, according to an injunction of the Inquisition as to ‘decency’ being carefully covered) and theseputtialmost always carried flowers, the rose, lily, olive and palm. Sometimes the iris was added, and occasionally the iris alone was used.362Very often aputtocarries a looking-glass,363a symbol of the Immaculate Conception which appears to be of Spanish origin, but which is perhaps a variation or development of the transparent vase, which in the 15th century art was a symbol of the virgin birth of Christ. The idea is that the glass, whatever be the image cast upon it, remains in itself unstained.

In Murillo’s masterpiece, ‘La Purissima’ of the Prado, the flowers indicate Mary’s virtues. The rose, symbol of love and mercy, show her as theMater misericordiæ; the lily shows her purity—she is ‘La Purissima:’ the palm of triumph is hers as the Queen of Heaven and the olive tells of the healing she brings to mankind; she is theConsolatrix Afflictorum.

And the Church having identified the Virgin with the ‘Wisdom’ of the 24th Chapter of Ecclesiasticus, these symbols are also her direct emblems, for, says Wisdom:

‘I was exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and as a rose-plant in Jericho, as a fair olive-tree in a pleasant field.’

And the lily is always her emblem as ‘The lily of the valleys.’

It is noticeable that this figure of the Virgin, realized from the word picture of the Revelation of Saint John, was one that appealed strongly to the Spanish. She is ‘clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet.’ The moon is represented as the crescent moon which was the sacred device of the followers of Mahomet, and which had surmounted innumerable mosques throughout the Iberian peninsula for more than five hundred years. Ferdinand, husband of Isabella, put an end to the Moorish dominion in 1492, but the impress of the Moor is to this day strong on the land, and in the 17th century it seemed a fitting thing that the Virgin’s foot should be upon the hated crescent which symbolized Moorish rule and the faith of Islam. It was therefore, as a symbol of the Mohamedan faith [rather than as a symbol of chastity through its connection with the Goddess Diana, as is sometimes suggested], that representations of the Virgin with her feet upon a crescent, became so popular in Spain.

MurilloPhoto AndersonTHE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION(Prado, Madrid)

Murillo

Photo Anderson

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

(Prado, Madrid)

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