Between 1503 and 1511 Albrecht Dürer produced nineteen woodcuts depicting the life of the Virgin Mary. The story is told from her birth to her coronation in heaven.
The Birth of the Virgin Mary
The birth of our lady does not appear in the Canonical Gospels used in the Western Church traditions today. The only information we have is from the apocryphal Gospel, the Gospel of James, believed to be written in 145AD. This expands backward in time the infancy stories contained the Canonical Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and presents a narrative concerning the birth and upbringing of Mary herself. It is the oldest source to assert the virginity of Mary not only prior to but during and after the birth of Jesus.
The Gospel of James
The document presents itself as written by James: "I, James, wrote this history in Jerusalem." Thus the author is purported to be James the Just, whom the text claims is a son of Joseph from a prior marriage, and thus a stepbrother of Jesus. However, in the Roman Catholic Church they are considered cousins, whereas in the Eastern Orthodox tradition they are seen to be step brothers, Joseph having been a widow at the time of his marriage to Mary.
Scholars have established that, based on the style of the language and the fact that the author is not aware of contemporary Jewish customs, while the historical James the Just certainly would have been. For instance the work suggests there were consecrated temple virgins in Judaism, as with Vestal Virgins in pagan Rome, but this has been shown to be spurious. Celibacy has played little role in Judaism, in which marriage and raising children are understood as holy obligations.
Dürer’s Life of the Virgin
Dürer began the Life of the Virgin c. 1501-02 and completed it in 1511, incorporating into it works probably done before he decided upon a series of woodcuts, but with an overall plan in mind early on. The first complete edition (with a Latin text by Benedictus Chelidonius printed on the verso of the prints) was published in 1511. A further woodcut used as a frontispiece for this publication. Knackfuss in his 1900 book on the work of Dürer provides a description of the suite with a focus on this illustration; he describes it thus:
‘In this charming design, which fills only a portion of the page, in order to leave room for the title, we see the Virgin Mary with the child at her breast, represented, at the same time, as the woman of the Apocalypse, with the moon under her feet, surrounded by the sun, and having a crown of twelve stars over her head. It is wonderful what in impression of radiant light Dürer has managed to produce with black lines.’
Through the woodcuts the story unfolds through the remaining nineteen illustrations.
The following series of articles considers the life of Mary through the woodcuts of Dürer. It traces the story through the gospel of James and the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, together with a description of the iconography of the works.
References:
- H.Knackfuss Durer (London,1900)
- Ronald F. Hock The Infancy Gospels of James and Thomas (Polebridge Press, 1996)
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Anthony Hart - I am a retired Management Consultant, Management Trainer and University lecturer. Born in the UK, I now live in Malta. As a member of ...
