Understanding the Central Role of the Virgin Mary in Christian Art

MANILA BULLETIN
By Paul Blanco Zafaralla

PHILIPPINES---Central is the position of Virgin Mary in the body of Christian art – thematically from her birth to her coronation. The imaginative and great European artists have bequeathed to mankind this aspect in the life of the Mother of Christ (1. The Birth of Virgin Mary; 2. The Annunciation; 3. Nativity; 4. Mother and Child). Clifton Harby comments in The Bible in Art (1936) that these paintings and others of the same subject “make a supreme effort to give (the) Mother the character of universal motherhood, elevated to supernal heights.” [link]