| Willys Madonna | |
|---|---|
| Virgin with the Standing Child, Embracing his Mother | |
 | |
| Artist | Giovanni Bellini  |
| Year | 15th century |
| Dimensions | 75 cm (30 in) × 58.5 cm (23.0 in) × 4.5 cm (1.8 in) |
| Location | São Paulo Museum of Art, Brazil |
| Accession no. | MASP.00016 |
Virgin with the Standing Child, Embracing his Mother, also known asWillys Madonna is a painting by the Italian Renaissance masterGiovanni Bellini (Venice, 1425/1433–1516). It is now in theSão Paulo Museum of Art inSão Paulo, Brazil.
The iconography ofVirgin with the Standing Child, Embracing his Mother represented as a half-figure, behind a parapet, is extremely unusual in other painters, whereas it is almost a constant in Bellini's countlessVirgins (i.e. theContarini Madonna in theAccademia,Venice).
Rather than being just a formal preference, it is possible that this compositional device may involve some theological reasoning. According to a hypothesis first elaborated by Goffen[1] and later by Camesasca,[2] this is a variant of theByzantine symbology, which originally pertained to the representation ofChrist. In this representation, the half-figure would be a metaphor to suggest “the whole aspect” of the divine, as if this reduction would be better fitting it to the human comprehension.
It seems that Bellini was seeking, especially in theMASP work, the most heightened sacredness for the sacred. The interaction between the figures, though quite intense, is far from the domestic affectivity that is so appealing in manyItalianQuattrocentoVirgins (with Child). On the opposite, the sacredness of the group is highlighted, on the one hand, by the function of the parapet cutting off the viewer from the divine, and, on the other hand, by the boundary line between the sacred space and the profane landscape. This compartmentalization, and conceptual differentiations sensitive to space, or pictorial spaces, demonstrate Bellini's lack of interest in the axiom of unity of space imposed by theFlorentine perspective. They show his drive to invent a space capable of conciliating a new painting landscape with a space reminiscent of theByzantine intellectual mystique that so profoundly conditionedVenetian sensibility.[3]
As many scholars, such as Camesasca[4] and Tempestini,[5] have demonstrated, theMASP work is the prototype for several copies, versions, and derivations, among which are those by Francesco da Santa Croce (Vicenza,Museo Civico),Filippo Mazzola and Rocco Marconi (both inSarasota,Ringling Museum),Antonello de Saliba (Berlin, destroyed in 1945). Furthermore, two other copies are known, one of which at theArt Institute of Chicago, plus Bellini's variants, such as theMadonna degli Alberetti, 1487, of theGallerie dell’Accademia inVenice and theMorelli Madonna, of theAccademia Carrara inBergamo.
The painting was purchased on behalf of theSão Paulo Museum of Art at the Wildenstein Gallery,New York City in 1947. It had been acquired by Wildenstein in 1945 from the collection of Isabel van Wie Willys, widow ofJohn North Willys, from whom derives one of the names of this painting, and who bought it from the Duveen Gallery in 1915, having previously belonged to the collection of theDukes of Argyll.