This work of Renaissance Mannerism was probably created by a follower of Agnolo Bronzino, as the rendering matches Bronzino’s affinity for serene, distant, milky-white subjects and detailed depictions of depth and space.
Mannerists often sketched from sculptures, helping them render beautiful, often exaggeratedly idealized figures. Mary, so depicted here, has skin a creamy white, her neck impossibly long, eyes averted in a characteristic Bronzino fashion. The dark background throws into relief the stunning colors of her clothing and emphasizes the soft, pleasing variations of light that give her an ethereal quality. This piece is among the idealized images of the Mary and Christ that have become so ubiquitous in Western art, rendering it impossible to depict motherhood in the West without either explicitly or implicitly referencing Virgin and Child.
Here, Mary’s motherhood is characterized by a tension and worry that her son seems to have none of. While she stares at the lamb, a symbol of Christ’s forthcoming sacrifice, and holds her son back, his pose is all bounding energy, reaching forward entirely untroubled by her unease. Part of motherhood, it seems, is reconciling knowledge of the world’s ugliness with the task of raising a child in that same world.
Made of terracotta, a frequent material of ancient sculptors, this 18th century sculpture at first glance seems Roman, with the attention paid to drapery and rendering of bodily anatomy. Further, the sculpture references Roman Charity, a famous story in which a woman, Pero, breastfeeds her father in secret after he is sentenced to death. Impressed by her charity, the authorities release her father.
Thus began the Roman association of motherhood with charity, and subsequently, depictions of mothers breastfeeding became a shorthand symbol for the giving nature of women. This association would later be mapped onto the Virgin Mary, but the Enlightenment ushered in an era of increased secularization, and Mouton eschews Mary-as-charity and instead mines history for a pre-Christian depiction of motherhood.
Western societies often demand a docile, virtuous selflessness from women that perhaps originates from these stories. Further, this characterization of the nature of women was legitimized by Christianity and reinforced by the unmatched amount of depictions of Virgin and Child rendered over the centuries. Moulton imbues this image of women as the pinnacle of selflessness with a new authority at a time when people began to question religion by tying it to the Roman world, which served as an inspiration to the Enlightenment thinkers of the day.
Willam Holman Hunt, the founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, illustrates the beauty and fragility of life in this etching of his second wife, Edith, holding their child, Glady, above her arms in a moment of intensity. Set amongst columns and a domestic scene in the doorway behind, Hunt is alluding to the Renaissance— an era strongly associated with an appreciation of history paintings, particularly about the life of Jesus Christ.
Hunt, (especially during his time spent in the holy land of Jerusalem), regularly combined religious iconographies, alluding to classics and historical trends. Specifically, this etching echoes the familiar image of the Madonna of Humility, which are characterized by depictions of Mary seated on the ground. This kind of depiction is generally meant to highlight the piety, fragility, and volume of sacrifice of the Virgin. By placing common folk in a scene typically reserved for Christ, Hunt universalizes this sacrifice, suggesting perhaps that sacrifice and piety might, or should, characterize all good mothers. This advertent placement of undistinguished people in traditional poses of Christ and Mary was controversial yet somewhat typical of Hunt and his fellow Pre-Raphaelites.
Thought of as an atheist by many in his early life, Hunt is turning towards a more religious portrayal of family after losing his first wife, Fanny Waugh, during childbirth. Hunt portrays the sacrificial undertakings of the body that mothers endure during pregnancy and childbirth. Especially in times before medicine focused on maternity and female health, many women died in labor.
Aleksei Kharlamov, a Russian painter born into a family of surfs, is known for his romantic, idealized portraits of young, innocent women. He spent the majority of outside of Russia in émigré communities in Western Europe, particularly Paris, which helps to explain why the women in his portraits, despite being placed into rural Eastern backdrops, are often dressed in clothing more common amongst the wealthy in Western Europe.
“Young Woman and Child” is a provision title as the piece was originally left without one, thus it is ambiguous whether the two figures are mother and child or sisters. Kharlamov seldom portrays children as young as the girl resting in the arms of the woman, nor are his subject matters worn down and tired, so it is possible to surmise that he is intentionally depicting motherhood. Considering the various clues that suggest the woman on the right is a mother–the way she protects the girl by hoisting her tightly onto her shoulder as though acknowledging her heft, the suggestion of weariness in her eyes–tells us much about the signs we look for to denote motherhood. If haggard eyes is a sign of motherhood, the Virgin-influenced idealized motherhood is certainly absent. Here we take pause because she seems a little too young, maybe a little too innocent, betraying the ways in which we expect mothers to look and feel and act.
Mary Cassatt, one of the few female Impressionists, created this image of mother and child towards the end of her career, when she enjoyed a prominence and thus a greater artistic freedom. She allows viewers to witness her rendering process here, as each pastel stroke is distinct and visible. Cassatt embraced pastel while the medium was still considered effeminate by the European art establishment, and it came to characterize much of her later work.
Cassatt created mostly figural compositions throughout her career and was prolific with images of mother and child, some of which directly reference images of the Virgin and Child, imbuing them with an idealized warmth and light. Though she never had children herself, Cassatt often worked from images of her family, using them as models. In this piece, Cassatt seems to create something of a private, enchanted world for this mother and child, filled with light and movement and vibrant color but with little specificity of clothing or background, which heightens the idealized, dreamlike effect.
Cassatt also depicts the mother figure as a protector. She holds her child carefully, as if on display, but with a clear tenderness. Her head rests on the child’s shoulder, and the child holds her fingers. The physical closeness of mother and child signify the mother’s societal role as her child’s protector.