now even more attractive than her child, whose seriousness, in such
pictures, takes something from his childlikeness. Chronologically, our
list reads backwards, as the religious aspect of Mary's motherhood was
the first treated in art, while the naturalistic conception came last.
Regarded as expressive of national characteristics, the Mater Amabilis
is the Madonna best beloved in northern countries, while the other two
subjects belong specially to the art of the south.

It will be seen that any number of Madonna pictures, having been
arranged in the five groups designated in Part I., may be gathered up
and redistributed in the three classes of Part II. To make this clear,
the pictures mentioned in the first method of classification are
frequently referred to a second time, viewed from an entirely
different standpoint. Since the lines of cleavage are so widely
dissimilar in the two cases, both methods of study are necessary to a
complete understanding of a picture. By the first, we learn a
convenient term of description by which we may casually designate a
Madonna; by the second, we find its highest meaning as a work of art,
and are admitted to some new secret of a mother's love.




PART I.

MADONNAS CLASSED BY THE STYLE OF COMPOSITION.