Martha and Mary Magdalene (Italian: Marta e Maddalena) Artist: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio Year: c. 1598 Type: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 100 cm × 134.5 cm (39 in × 53.0 in) Location: Detroit Institute of Art From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository The painting shows the sisters Martha and Mary from the New Testament. Martha is in the act of converting Mary from her life of pleasure to the life of virtue in Christ. Martha, her face shadowed, leans forward, passionately arguing with Mary, who twirls an orange blossom between her fingers as she holds a mirror, symbolising the vanity she is about to give up. The power of the image lies in Marys face, caught at the moment when conversion begins. A finely grained cream-brown table running in front of the sisters displays three objects, of which a Venetian mirror is the most obvious. It reflects the Magdalens hand and a rectangular window, to which reflection her middle finger points. The other two objects are an ivory comb and a dish with a sponge. The type of dish was called a sponzarol by the Venetians and, in this case, is made of alabaster. Mary wears red, the colour of the Magdalen, and a dress very similar to one Caravaggio employs in his Portrait of a Courtesan (1597) and Saint Catherine (1598), with embroidery on the blouse, similar to what we see in his Penitent Magdalen. The writings of the Church Fathers (starting with Origen) established Martha and Mary as representative of the active versus the contemplative aspects of Christian faith. This distinction was exemplified in art like Bernardino Luinis Martha and Mary, once in the Barberini Collection in Rome, and attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. Caravaggio would certainly have known the painting. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 11:56:29 +0000