.So, hello guys! I'm @TheSquiress and this is actually my first article under Your Refined Taste. This week, we'll be looking into one of paintings of a famous Filipino painters, Vincente Manansala and have it content analysed!
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The Madonna, The Child, and the Alabaster Jar: A Portrait of Modern Heresy
The subject Madonna and Child encompasses many cultures. As art became a servant of the Church in the Dark and Middle ages, it pushed ideals that we should look into glorious afterlife and the salvation of the soul. Proportion and nude were deemed heretic, as well as art that clearly antagonizes the Church’s teachings(1). As a product, the western civilization produced art that pleased the Church’s eye, like Michelangelo’s Pietà, Berlinghiero’s Madonna and Child from the 12th century A.D. another painting of the same name but by the hands of Raphael, and Madonna of the Rocks by da Vinci, which did not please its patron that’s why another painting, who goes by the name of Virgin of the Rocks and with details approved by the Church, came to spice history of art.
A painting is a mode of representation(2). It is that which brings out the ‘self’ of an artist. His beliefs, his convictions, his philosophy is embodied on his brushstrokes and colors. A painting is a piece of an artist’s mind and how he interprets the world is reflected on his art. His thoughts, how deviant and heretic it may be, is projected on his canvas.
Vicente Manansala is one of the most prominent Filipino visual artists. He is considered a pioneer in Philippine Cubism(3) and was even known to employ the technique “transparent cubism” where his forms do not necessarily ‘touch’ each other, producing a sheer effect. In his painting The Madonna and Child (refer to the image on your right), this technique has been used and it totally made a whole new picture out of the traditional Cubist works of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. Compared to the Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, which looks dry and very two dimensional with its Avignon girls on a sensual pose and Braque’s Violin and Candlestick which showed depth but still felt dry to my eyes, Manansala’s Madonna and Child looks a freshly picked apple. Cubism gave Manansala freedom to express his beliefs, and create a variant of Cubism itself. To quote Ferdinand Leger’s words (another Cubist painter), “Art [is] consists of inventing and not copying”(4).
A Portrait of Modern Heresy
If we could notice, that behind the brilliance of Manansala’s transparent cubism hides an uncanny symbolism. Actually, it does not hide, but sits quietly in plain view, but catches our attention with a shift in point-of-view.
Symbols are profound expressions of human nature which simultaneously addresses our intellect, emotions and spirit(5). If we should look on the upper right corner of the Madonna and Child painting, we will see a rather irrelevant object: an alabaster jar and an accompanying red ribbon. What are those two doing there? What is the connection between the subject Mary and the child Jesus to the random jar and ribbon?
Perhaps what we need is another shift paradigm shift. The old adage what you see is what you get appears to apply to the world we see all around us. However, we little appreciate that a different way of observing complementary to the adage exists. It states what you see is what you expect. These adages may appear to be saying the same thing, but the two are really quite different(6). We have always expected that whenever something is titled ‘The Madonna and Child”, it means to say the subject is always Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and Baby Jesus himself. But think why would a brilliant artist put an irrelevant object on the right side of the Virgin? It may tell us that the woman cradling the child isn’t the Blessed Mother, but rather, another woman entirely: Mary Magdalene.
