Tag Archives: French

Object of the Month: August 2024

The Visitation

Oil on canvas, signed and dated lower left: L. Boulogne le J.f. 1688

Louis de Boullogne, the Younger

French, 1654-1733

Louis de Boullogne, the Younger is a second-generation French painter who with his brother studied at the French Academy and also in Rome. Unlike most other students, however, Boullogne later taught at the Paris Academy and then became its director. He went on to become First Painter to King Louis XIV. His work is known throughout France, especially at Versailles.

When one encounters a work of art, one often has a visceral reaction to some aspect of the work. No doubt the vibrant colors in The Visitation by Louis de Boullogne are a lovely invitation into an appreciation of the painting. In the mid-1800s, Charles George, the Commissaire-Expert of the Louvre, complimented the choice of color and even the “fresh and graceful” brushstrokes. But to really understand a work, one must know the subject matter; after all, the work is but a vehicle for the meaning.

The title refers to the visit of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth shortly after Gabriel announced that God had chosen Mary to bear the Messiah (Luke 1). Elizabeth herself had also been the recipient of God’s grace. Mirroring Sarah and Abraham, Elizabeth and Zechariah (also Zacharias) were old and childless. But God sent Gabriel to meet Zechariah with a message of miraculous birth three months before the angel appeared to Mary.

To visit the one who can best sympathize with her situation, Mary travels nearly one hundred miles “in haste,” needing encouragement, for the public ordeal that will doubtless come from her pregnancy. Nazareth was a small town, and “bad” news always travels fast. As Mary greets Elizabeth, now openly six-months pregnant, the baby (John as he will be called) leaps “in her womb for joy.” This first meeting of the cousins—John the Baptist, the Way-Preparer and Christ the Messiah—foreshadows the joy of their partnership in turning the hearts of Israel toward God.

Both mothers have crucial roles to play in the redemption story. Though Elizabeth is the elder and Mary the visitor, Boullogne places the characters on the same step of the house. Their mirrored poses—clasped right hands and left hands placed on one another’s shoulders—show their equality as well. Both mothers are handmaidens of the Lord, being the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecies. This certainty of God’s hand upon them gives both women the strength they need to endure the whispers and stares of their community.

Elizabeth’s response to Mary’s unrecorded greeting, wondering that “the mother of my Lord” would come to visit her and blessing Mary and the “fruit of her womb” prompts Mary’s own praise of “God [her] Savior.” Both Mary and Elizabeth know their place in the redemption story—recipients of the Messiah’s saving work.

Possibly influenced by the school of Carlo Maratta, Boullogne chose colors and brushstrokes to make this a winsome and charming portrayal of two godly women. Zechariah as the elder forerunner is thus placed superior to Christ on the steps, yet his son John’s fame and ministry will decrease as the Messiah Himself rises in prominence. Joseph’s presence is not noted in the biblical text, which is an appropriate omission for this first-recorded recognition of the Son of God by those He came to save.

Dr. Karen Rowe Jones, M&G board member

Published 2024

Object of the Month: October 2023

Scenes from the Apocalypse

Oil on panel

Unknown French, mid-16^th century

These M&G panels are painted sections from a winged altarpiece, positioned on, above, or behind the church’s altar. The wings or hinged doors would be opened for liturgical feasts and events. When the wings were closed, the side facing the audience was often painted in monochrome colors depicting various saints’ lives; as the wings were opened, the interior (including the other side of the doors) revealed more colorful pictures with a large feature painting in the center.

The Scenes from the Apocalypse by an unknown 16^th-century French artist illustrates the medieval tradition of the Signs of the Apocalypse (drawn from Mark 13 and Revelation). These five separate panels were once joined in a single winged altarpiece with a total of fourteen or fifteen panels detailing the Signs and with the central interior panel possibly featuring the Last Judgment. Viewing these works from left to right,

Panel 1 is the Third Sign: sea monsters that ravage the seas.
Panel 2 is the reverse of Panel 1, being once united as a single panel.
Panel 3 is the Second Sign: the seas disappearing into the earth.
Panel 4 is the reverse of Panel 5, being once united as a single panel.
Panel 5 is the Fourth Sign: the burning of the seas and rivers.

Two ideas are fundamental to understanding this altarpiece. First, these panels illustrate the Word of God. According to Pope Gregory the Great (lived c.540-604), “Illiterate men can contemplate in the lines of a picture what they cannot learn by means of the written word.” Seeing the horrors of the End Times should motivate the viewer to take action to avoid them. These panels become visual conviction.

The Bible portrays man’s sinfulness and presents the atoning work of Christ as the remedy. The panels’ subject matter confronts the viewer with the penalty for sin even before the Last Judgment arrives. Juxtaposing these panels directly with the altar argues that Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross, accepted by God the Father as payment for man’s sin and ratified by Christ’s resurrection from the dead, is man’s rescue from the Apocalypse. In view of these coming events, the physical placement of these panels prompts the viewer to appropriate for himself Christ’s sacrifice.

Secondly, the reverse of the panels—scenes from the lives of Old and New Testament figures—argues for the ability of humans to react properly to the revelation of God’s Word.

Panel 2 references the conversion of Saul of Tarsus when confronted with the crucified Christ. The presence of the Holy Spirit as the dove and the holding of the slain Christ by God the Father clearly teaches the unity of the Trinity: Saul’s persecution of followers of Christ is persecution of the God that his pharisaical upbringing revered. The panel directly challenges the viewer to answer the Trinity in the same way Saul did: “What would you have me to do, Lord?”
Panel 4 is the Woman Clothed with the Sun. She is labeled in the Revelation as a sign (12:1), but not included in the medieval list of signs. The artist portrays the Woman just as the Scripture does: “clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.” Though many critics identify this Woman as the Virgin Mary, a continued reading of the biblical text—and a careful examination of the panel—shows that this Woman symbolizes the nation Israel whose annihilation the Dragon seeks in the Last Days. Note the dragon tail just visible at the bottom of the panel. The Jewish child is Christ who escapes the Dragon. But “the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days” (12:6). Mary is not present at the end of the world, but the nation that brought forth the Messiah is. This panel, too, points to Christ as the provision of salvation from destruction of the Last Days.

Like the Pricke of Conscience, a series of stained-glass windows also based on the Signs of the Last Days, M&G’s panels challenge the viewer to consider the Apocalypse from a personal point of view.

Dr. Karen Rowe Jones, M&G board member

Published 2023

Jacopo de Carolis

Madonna and Child with Angels

Jacopo de Carolis

Below the image, click play to listen.

Picture Books of the Past: Gustave Doré

Enjoy this series of segments highlighting Picture Books of the Past: Reading Old Master Paintings, a loan exhibition of 60+ works from the M&G collection. The exhibit has traveled to The Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. and the Orlando Museum of Art in Florida.

Gustave Doré was a prolific painter, illustrator, engraver, and sculptor. He published his first drawings at age 15 and went on to become the most sought-after illustrator of the mid-19^th century.