Madonna met kind 1618 - 1655

Editor: This is “Madonna met kind,” or Madonna and Child, an engraving made sometime between 1618 and 1655 by Cornelis Schut, and currently residing in the Rijksmuseum. It has an intimate, domestic mood that contrasts with the very controlled line work. How do you interpret this piece? Curator: Intimate is a great way to describe it, even though it's teeming with historical and cultural meaning! The engraver almost caresses the scene into being, don't you think? Look how the light, seemingly born of divine grace, softly bathes the Virgin and Child. This is a tenderly crafted piece of devotion from the Baroque era, so a dialogue between religious fervor and intimate human emotion is something quite common. See how Schut renders the Madonna's gaze, not heavenward, but upon the babe she cradles? What does it tell you? Editor: It suggests an intensely human relationship, deviating from strictly religious iconography and investing a more emotional bond to the representation of the Virgin and child. Curator: Precisely! In this way, perhaps, we may view it as an effort to render divinity in our terms. And look over there, the presence of those roses blooming at the foot of the cross on the left side – that touch infuses it with such melancholy sweetness, no? I think of transience, of beauty inevitably entwined with suffering… Perhaps it's my mood today! What do you make of that particular choice? Editor: It enhances the Baroque focus on intricate details as rhetorical devices. The detail acts as both an aesthetic enhancement and to offer clues about its historical moment and beliefs, doesn’t it? Curator: Exactly! So, it's a confluence of devotion and design, of mortality and the divine... A whole world, really, etched onto this small plate. I am sure we can revisit it every day and keep discovering a new detail or thought. Editor: Agreed!