Madonna and Child

Fine art has been around for thousands of years, providing us various designs, forms, colors, background around the globe before all of us as well as what it really may look like in the future. Without having art we would be unable to know how certain ethnicities lived, the things they believed within or even that they were. Over time artists possess influenced one another as well as formed newer understandings as well as broadened upon each other’s projects. Duccio di Buoninsegna as well as Giovanni Bellini each painted Madonna and Child in their own individual unique methods, improving upon ideas prior to them.

These two works of art differ from one another in size, colors and even in the proportions. In Duccio’s painting, the baby Jesus looks like a small boy with a tiny head. The body proportions are not precise and Mary appears to be holding on to a dark doll instead of her child. Bellini gives the impression and accuracy of a small baby being held by a woman. What makes Jesus even more related to a child is that he is nude unlike Duccio’s Jesus who is fully clothed in orange and brown garments. Even though Bellini’s baby is much more realistic than Duccio’s, it still appears to be larger than a newborn child we would see or hold in our hands. This enlargement of the child could just mean that he is no ordinary child and needs to be shown differently so that we can identify his importance.

            While Duccio’s baby Jesus is dark and has short dark hair, Bellini’s child is white with orange curly hair. This shows the different views the artists had on the way the child looked as well as incorporating their own views and beliefs. Bellini’s baby is holding on to a pear with his right hand and has his left hand over the chest as if in awe what he is seeing. Since the pear is in between both of the figures, Mary and baby Jesus, it could symbolize their sweetness, innocence and purity like the fruit has. Both of the babies, being held by their mother, still look like they are floating or weightless. In Duccio’s painting Mary is able to hold the child with one hand and he manages to sit up straight without any real support on his upper back. Bellini’s baby Jesus is being held by the woman but is not sitting in her lap, even though it may seem like that, he is placed a little higher than the lap. This floatation of the children is also a symbolic way to show their graveness.

What makes these two paintings vary even more from one another is also their background. In Duccio di Buoninsegna’s Madonna and Child the background is just the gold color. The only difference in it is the extra detail surrounding the three lengths of the painting. In Bellini’s painting, there is a clear landscape in the background behind Mary and the child. From the bottom left corner there are few trees that form an upside down triangle. They are dead trees and maybe are even pear trees that could be the meaning behind the pear in the baby’s hands. Behind the trees is a small town and the last shape in the town looks like a church. In the far distance of the town are mountains and above is the sky and clouds. By incorporating the landscape of that period, people could relate to it as in the Robert Campin’s Merode Alterpiece where Joseph is working on mouse traps and in the background is the 15^th century town. This is one of the styles incorporated in the 15^th century art unlike the early 14^th century art where most of the focus was on the subjects. The Venetians were in competition with Rome and wanted to be ‘the center’ of everything. In their art they incorporated landscapes and rich colorization of blue, red and gold which we see in both Bellini’s and Jacapo’s Madonna of Humility with Donor painting, to show the Venetian wealth and beauty.