Art Interprets Duality of Jesus, Mary

In Caravaggio’s painting “The Death of the Virgin,” the model for Mary was either a drowned prostitute plucked from the Tiber River or a harlot with whom the painter was in love. Or so the legend goes.

What’s known for sure is that Caravaggio’s commissioned painting, completed in 1603, was rejected by the friars at the Santa Maria della Scala in Rome, who thought it didn’t properly reflect the Virgin Mary’s divine nature as the mother of Christ.

She lies stiff on her deathbed. Her body is bloated, her feet dirty, her dress and hair disheveled. The picture of a real and mundane human death jarred Catholic officials, conflicting with their increasingly hallowed view of Mary.

Next to the engraving of “The Death of The Virgin” is a Rembrandt etching with the same title, finished 36 years later. It shows a more stately Mary, sitting in a regal bed surrounded by attendants. A light shines from the heavens, giving the pictorial a divine quality, though a doctor taking Mary’s pulse hints at her humanness.

For centuries, Christians have wrestled with how to reconcile the two natures of Christ as understood by the church, a savior who is both fully man and fully God.

The debate over the nature of Jesus also spilled into the Christian perceptions of his mother. Catholics teach that Mary was immaculately conceived, and therefore without sin. They also believe she was bodily assumed into heaven three days after her death. Most Protestant churches reject those teachings.

The debates over the nature of Jesus and Mary have played out in Christian theology and in Western art. The latter aspect of the debate is the focus of an exhibition of 30 works, including the Caravaggio and the Rembrandt, now at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

“Between Heaven and Earth: Images of Christ and the Virgin,” illustrates creative ways artists have dealt with the difficult issues surrounding the human and divine natures of the two figures at the center of Christian belief.

“With modern art, some people ask, ‘What’s the point?’ ” said Stephanie Schrader, co-curator of the exhibit, which runs through June 29. “These works were meant to be compelling, convincing and something that supported a particular set of beliefs.”

Taking images from its own collection, the Getty show uses artists’ depictions of the final days on Earth of Jesus and Mary. Some of the works have been acquired by the museum and the Getty Research Institute within the last two years.

The drawings, prints and illustrated books are arranged in major categories, including the transfiguration, the agony in the garden, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and the death and assumption of the Virgin Mary. The groupings are accompanied by the passage of Scripture if there’s a description of the event in the Bible.

In images reflecting the divine, Jesus is idealized with a perfect body and a serene countenance, often floating above the crowd.

In the engraving “The Resurrection” by Schelte Adams Bolswert, taken from an altarpiece by Peter Paul Rubens, Christ’s body is surrounded by a halo as he steps triumphantly from the tomb, holding a banner declaring the Resurrection.

The sight “elicits a variety of responses from the soldiers, who cower, flee or gaze with rapt attention,” said co-curator Louis Marchesano.

By contrast, in “The Agony of the Garden,” French painter and draftsman Carle Vanloo shows a very human Jesus fainting at the thought of his impending death, his body supported by two angels.

The curators say the exhibit is meant, not to raise theological issues, but rather to demonstrate how the debate within Christianity played out among Renaissance and baroque artists who brought the beliefs and doctrines of their church to the masses. Catholics leaned toward the divine interpretation of Mary’s and Jesus’ nature and Protestants tended to depict their humanity.

How-to manuals were produced for artists who wanted to produce well-received biblical and religious depictions. Featured in the exhibit is one such book, “Theology for Painters, Sculptors, Engravers and Draftsmen,” published in Paris in 1765.

Author Joseph Mery del la Canorgue, a Catholic, tells artists, “If there is a mystery, in effect, susceptible to striking images and beauties of all kinds, it is, without contradiction, the triumph of the mother of a god.” “These books tried to get artists to follow doctrines that were sanctioned by the church,” Marchesano said.

A cheaply produced booklet on display gives an account of Christ’s death and resurrection, something that was read by common Romans who filled the Colosseum each Easter weekend. The booklet includes illustrations that are crude, but still get the church’s teachings across to the citizenry.

“The images circulated to all levels of society,” Marchesano said. “They taught you stories from the Bible and how to behave.”