Biblical Views: Virgin Mother in Modern Art with Traditional Christian Values

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Yes, I know what you are thinking: What on earth possessed the editor of BAR to publish such a disturbing image? Perhaps you are sputtering with outrage at the very idea that the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, could be portrayed half-flayed, with her muscles and part of her skull exposed. But don’t turn the page in disgust too quickly. What I hope to show is that first impressions can be misleading. Sometimes, what at first strikes us as atrocious might even, when viewed in context, end up providing spiritual enrichment—or at least, a nod of understanding. So give me a chance to convince you.

Damien Hirst, the British conceptual artist who created this sculpture titled Virgin Mother, on display in the plaza of Lever House in New York City, has a reputation for shocking his audiences—often, as here, with Biblically titled works. But for now, let’s set the artist aside and look at the Virgin Mother on its own terms because, believe it or not, this work deviates not one bit from traditional Christian theology regarding Jesus and the Virgin Mary. And for all its alien strangeness, this Virgin Mother evokes traditional modes of representing the Virgin Mary in Christian literature and art.¹

Obviously, the idea that this Virgin is pregnant presents no problems. Mary’s pregnant belly figures naturally in Christian art, the most famous example arguably Piero della Francesca’s Madonna del Parto,² which the hand of the Virgin here seems consciously to echo as it draws the viewer’s attention to the golden child in her belly—golden, of course because the infant Jesus is precious and holy.

But, you might counter, “She’s naked! Isn’t this just plain disrespectful?” Here is where some long-standing Christian theology comes in, because the Virgin’s nakedness evokes important Christian dogmas. First, as early as the second century, church fathers such as Justin Martyr and Irenaeus—both saints, by the way—drew parallels between Mary and Eve. According to God’s plan of salvation, they explained, Eve’s disobedience brought sin and death, but Mary’s obedience to God brought salvation and eternal life; where fallen Eve’s nakedness symbolized sin, the Virgin’s “yes” made it possible for human nakedness to regain its Edenic innocence and purity. This is why the earliest Christians were baptized in the nude; in their very nakedness the newly baptized defied the shame of sin.

Even before church fathers promoted the Eve-Mary parallel, however, the Virgin Mary played a key role in arguments against the very first Christian heresy (i.e., a belief condemned by church leaders as incorrect) called Docetism. Docetists found repugnant the idea that Jesus had suffered on the cross; they insisted on the full divinity of Jesus and claimed that Jesus only seemed (the Greek word dokein means “to seem”) to suffer and die. Other Christians (the ones whose theology won out) insisted, as Christians do today, that Jesus was both human and divine; Jesus’ suffering and death as a human being on human terms is what atoned for the sins of humanity. Around 107 C.E., Ignatius of Antioch fulminated against the Docetists—he called them “ravening dogs”—and reminded Christians that Jesus “became also man, of Mary the virgin. For ‘the Word was made flesh’ [John 1:14].”³ In other words, because Mary was human, her son Jesus had to be human, too. No one looking at the Virgin Mother would doubt either her humanity or the humanity of the baby nurtured in her womb. The flesh and blood of the Virgin Mother visualize the essential Christian dogma of Jesus’ humanity.⁴

Readers might be surprised to learn that another part of the Virgin Mother’s anatomy, namely her breasts, also figures prominently in the Christian 066understanding of Jesus’ incarnation (i.e., becoming human). Those same church fathers I mentioned above insisted that Jesus “made for Himself a body of the seed of the Virgin … [and] was in reality nourished with milk.”⁵ In his delightful Christmas hymns, Ephrem of Syria (c. 306–373) describes how the Magi “saw the Son in arms and the pure One sucking pure milk,”⁶ and he reminds Christians, “Though Most High, yet [Jesus] sucked the milk of Mary.”⁷ Medieval miracle stories of the Virgin tell of repentant sinners on whose lips Mary actually let fall some of her milk.⁸ The English poet Joseph Beaumont (1619–1699) envisioned “Jesus Between Mary’s Breasts” where Jesus

… found two beds of spice,

A double mount of lilies in whose top

Two milky fountains bubbled up.

He soon resolved: “And well I like!”

He cries,

“My table spread Upon my bed.”

No wonder, then, that private patrons and church officials alike commissioned so many paintings of Jesus nursing at the breast of the Madonna.

So, in the end, I hope readers understand why I can claim that this odd, initially disturbing, monumental sculpture has a lot to do with the spirit of Christianity. After all, Christians rejoice at the unthinkable, that God was born to a human mother and that a king was laid in a manger. And this helpless baby grew up to turn the world’s values upside down, announcing that “many who are first will be last, and the last will be first” (Matthew 19:30). Perhaps similarly, first impressions can be last, and the last thing you might expect can be true.

Yes, I know what you are thinking: What on earth possessed the editor of BAR to publish such a disturbing image? Perhaps you are sputtering with outrage at the very idea that the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, could be portrayed half-flayed, with her muscles and part of her skull exposed. But don’t turn the page in disgust too quickly. What I hope to show is that first impressions can be misleading. Sometimes, what at first strikes us as atrocious might even, when viewed in context, end up providing spiritual enrichment—or at least, a nod of understanding. So […]