A REPORT ON: "The faces of Mary in Art"

          

         The pressure society puts on women today to look, feel and act perfect is quite overwhelming. For those of us who feel the pressure to do so, we know it can have a great effect on our own self-esteem, mostly negative. And for the few that have the self-confidence to ignore the social norm of fitting in, you might find that rejection is inevitable. So what about the pressure of perfection for the most holy, important and perfect women in all of Christianity?

            In DVD, The faces of Mary in Art, it is interesting to observe the true, natural beauty that artists over the ages have depicted Mary to possess. She is Jesus’ mother, and also many think her to be the mother of God. She is young, she has natural beauty, and she has a sense of strength as well as innocence in her eyes. I think it is important to depict her as a virgin, people can relate to the helplessness she must have felt when she found out she was pregnant. I think it is also very interesting to see how the artists portray beauty, because it is so different then our 21^st century definition. Today, if we were asked to draw a picture of the most beautiful, holy, & powerful women that exists, you might get pictures that resemble a women with a face of Marilyn Monroe, a body of Gwyneth Paltrow wearing something from Lady Gagaga’s closet. However, in the depiction of Mary, this is not the case.

            I think that the definition of beauty is subjective. However, in Christianity, Mary is without a doubt the face of perfection. We saw this in the DVD. Understanding why the artists depicted the many faces of Mary in the way they did is all about understanding what it means to be a Christian women and what that represents.

Picture of Mary and Jesus I took this past weekend in the Cathedral in Pienza 

-Claire Shumaker