Art History II
Professor Cacoilo
Mocking of Christ With The Virgin Mary and St. Dominic
by Fra Angelico.
Mini Post #1
The painting I chose to analyze is the Mocking of Christ With The Virgin Mary and St. Dominic by Fra Angelico. This an altarpiece made for the Monastery of San Marco in Florence in 1441-1445. The genre of this work was made relates to its time period during the 1400’s art was used to worship and to exhibit people's devotion to Christ and to the Church, and or the genre of the early renaissance. Creating these altarpieces to be seen by other worships creates a space where people can come reaffirm their beliefs, and this piece, in particular, does that. The piece shows Christ being ridiculed and his followers also being ridiculed for believing in him and the bible, but in turn this shows that even people are belittling Christ and his followers that the halo around his head in the piece remains and His white robe remains holy portraying that in the end Christ and his followers will prevail. This work highlights some of the religious persecution the people during the time of Christ were facing, but as the piece ages, it still holds true to that narrative. Religious persecution is still around today. In every time period with every religion that has ever existed religious persecution came with it and with that came art like this one that was made to make those who were affected feel a sense of pride and steadfastness in their religion. This piece shows that if Christ himself could be painted on a red humble box and have someone spit in his face but still hold his halo on his head, then anyone following him will be okay.
Works like this highlight these issues through incredibly subtle yet powerful imagery and details. And these details help us today to better analyze and understand the way people felt at the time of Christ and at the time the piece was created which was in the 1400s. Even today it helps explain those times while relating to us now, no one has never felt persecuted against in one way or another but this piece creates a sense of confidence that anyone who is not even Christian can learn and feel.
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