Madonna and Child
A Christian image of Mary with the infant Jesus. It presents the relationship between Christ’s human infancy and Mary’s role as his mother.
Mary, mother of Jesus: The Jewish woman whom Christian tradition identifies as the mother of Jesus. She is the central human figure and devotional focus beside the infant Christ.
Madonna of Bruges: A marble sculpture of Mary and the infant Jesus made by Michelangelo around 1504. Its seated, restrained figures offer a striking sculptural treatment of the subject.
Early Christian art: Art produced by Christian communities from the second through the sixth centuries. Its surviving images trace the subject’s development in the first centuries of Christian visual culture.
Incarnation: The Christian doctrine that God became human in Jesus Christ. The infant Jesus makes divine embodiment visible through a human mother and child.
Byzantine art: The artistic traditions of the Byzantine Empire and its cultural successors. Byzantine icon painting established influential formats for Mary and the Christ Child.
Jesus: The first-century Jewish preacher whom Christians regard as the Messiah and Son of God. His depiction as an infant anchors the image’s Christian meaning.
Madonna of the Rocks: A composition of Mary, Jesus, John the Baptist, and an angel painted in two versions by Leonardo da Vinci. It places the central mother-and-child pair within a larger, symbolically charged scene.
Theotokos of Vladimir: A Byzantine icon of Mary and Jesus, probably painted in the twelfth century and later venerated in Russia. Its history shows how Byzantine Marian images traveled and acquired new devotional lives.
Marian devotion: Christian religious devotion directed toward Mary, the mother of Jesus. Repeated images of Mary with Jesus have served as focal points for prayer and veneration.
Renaissance art: European art from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries, marked by renewed study of antiquity and naturalism. Renaissance artists adapted the subject through perspective, lifelike bodies, and varied settings.