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A Comparison of Medieval Madonna and Child Sculptures

In the Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Medieval Art Galleries, two French sculptures dated some two and a half centuries apart reflect the divergent styles of their times. Virgin and Child in Majesty (Auvergne, mid - late 12th c.) and Virgin and Child (attributed to Claux de Werve, Poligny, ca. 1415) share the same subject matter, but have little else in common. The earlier piece's stylized artifice looks back in time to the Migratory Period, the Iconoclastic Controversy, and Judean forms descended from the ancient Near East; its later successor turns toward a future of greater animation and naturalism to flower in the High Renaissance.

The former, much smaller at 31" tall; and its counterpart, 53" high, base their depictions on certain conventional attributes of Christian iconography. The Virgin is identified by the ubiquitous blue dress and red mantle, head draped. The Poligny Child bears its emblematic book, as probably did the Auvergne version before being damaged. The shapes of the wood's fractures where the forearms are now broken off suggest that here was a prototypical pose of the Infant Christ: right arm raised in a blessing gesture, left arm across the body holding a book or scroll. As is commonly the format, the Child is in the lap of the Virgin Mother. These similarities aside, in all else the two show a range of significant differences.

Ideal Vantage Points for the Viewer

The overall orientation of each shows a move from frontal composition aimed at a viewer straight ahead, to a half-round format designed for perspectives all along a semicircular arc travelling from one side to the other. The twelfth century work is a reliquary, and though such a purpose would make it portable and thereby seen in the round, its figures face only forward. Not just the faces, but the bodies...