THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS
(Uffizi Gallery, Florence)
THE IMMACULATE
CONCEPTION
BY
MURILLO
In the 17th century the Spanish Inquisition appointed certain familiares whose warrant ran:
‘We give him commission and charge him hence forward that he take particular care to inspect and visit all paintings of sacred subjects which may stand in shops or in public places; if he finds anything to object to in them he is to take the picture before the Lords of the Inquisition.’
Murillo, painting for the Church in Seville, the most orthodox city of Spain, may therefore be reckoned correct in his method of presenting sacred subjects. At the period in which he painted, the particular form of Madonna picture most often ordered by the Spanish Church, was that known as the ‘Immaculate Conception.’
The sinless birth of the Virgin was a dogma that had been adopted enthusiastically by the Spanish, so much so that Philip III and Philip IV sent special embassies to Rome to obtain more explicit papal recognition of the doctrine. It did not, however, become an article of faith till 1854 and, as a subject, it is chiefly confined to the Spanish School.
The scheme of the picture is invariably taken from the Revelation of St. John.
‘And there appeared a great wonder in Heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.’
It was usual to add a group of putti about the Virgin’s feet (her feet, according to an injunction of the Inquisition as to ‘decency’ being carefully covered) and these putti almost always carried flowers, the rose, lily, olive and palm. Sometimes the iris was added, and occasionally the iris alone was used.[362] Very often a putto carries a looking-glass,[363] a symbol of the Immaculate Conception which appears to be of Spanish origin, but which is perhaps a variation or development of the transparent vase, which in the 15th century art was a symbol of the virgin birth of Christ. The idea is that the glass, whatever be the image cast upon it, remains in itself unstained.