Immaculate Conception with Saints

According to Church dogma, as Mother of the Savior of Mankind, Mary has held a place of special importance since the early history of Christianity. Indeed the Council of Ephesus in 431 sanctioned the cult of Mary as Mother of God confirming her place in the hierarchy of the Church and her role as intercessor for humanity. Mary became a favorite subject for all sorts of pictorial renditions in the churches in the East and West. Indeed, depictions of Mary as Queen of Heaven date to the 6th century in the Roman church of Santa Maria Antiqua. Images of the Immaculate Conception along with the Coronation of the Virgin proliferated during the 12th and 13th centuries when many of Europe’s cathedrals were being constructed in her name such as Notre Dame de Paris. The portals of these churches were often embellished with sculptural figures of Mary depicted at center with Christ or God the Father holding the Crown over her head. Fervor to this Marian iconography continued, in part due to the preaching of St. Dominic and his fellow friars who advocated the rosary as another Marian devotion; the fifth of the so-called Glorious Mysteries is the Coronation of the Virgin. By the 14th century painters such Fra Angelico, Lorenzo Monaco and Filippo Lippi, to name a few, created masterpieces based on this iconography that would eventually influence other masters in the next few hundred years.

The Virgin Mary became a powerful female symbol during the evangelization of the native peoples throughout the Spanish-held colonies. Her image as a queen of a heavenly realm resonated with their own spiritual concepts about a motherly force or Pachamama. This representation of the Virgin Mary, alluding both to the Virgin's immaculacy and the coronation, is replete with important figures related to her including her parents—the elderly Joachim and Anne who each hold laurel branches that connect to the white lily supporting the figure of Mary as the Immaculate Conception. The laurel in ancient history was a symbol of triumph and for Christians, of victory over death. It must be noted the Virgin, body and soul, is being assumed into Heaven. Welcoming her to the celestial kingdom are Saints John the Evangelist and John Damascene a Doctor of the Church. Saint John was the Apostle closest to Jesus; John Damascene, monk, priest, scholar, composer of hymns, and theologian, wrote about the Virgin and lived in Damascus during the 7th century. The painter has organized the figures as part of the billowy clouds that denote the heavens. The use of certain vibrant hues such as yellows and reds melding into a blinding gold intensifies the sacred space where the Virgin is transformed into the Queen of Heaven by the hands of Christ who bears the cross and God the Father who holds the global orb as the golden rays of the Holy Spirit descend upon them and a choir of angels look upon the holy spectacle. One of the most famous masterpieces in the Viceroyalty of Peru is Bernado Bitti’s Coronation of the Virgin (1575-80) in the Jesuit Church of San Pedro’s altarpiece in Lima, Peru. This present painting, although large-scale, would have been for private devotion in a home.

MJ Aguilar, Ph.D.