Skip to main content

Madonna of the Pomegranate

40pomegr.jpg

Madonna of the Pomegranate

Sandro Botticelli

Early Christianity was developed during the Roman Empire during which many pagan religions were localized into the broader Greco-Roman religion. Many Christian stories have been influenced by this amalgamation of beliefs, and have apparent ties to Greek mythology. Aware of this, some Jewish scholars believe the pomegranate was the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden as it is native to the area where apples are not (Haught, n.d.). Just as Persephone unknowingly tied her life to the underworld by eating the seeds of a pomegranate, so did Adam and Eve relinquish paradise by eating the forbidden fruit. The Christ's Child is shown holding his fruit of original sin, the myriad of seeds conveying the fullness of his suffering that will come in Christ's Passion (Kren & Marx, n.d.).

Looking at Boticelli's portrayal of the Virgin Mary in this piece, we can feel her sorrow through her glance. One might infer that this sorrow is in response to the suffering caused by her recent childbirth, as she is holding the baby Jesus. Her immaculate conception was willed by God, a stereotypically male force. Therefore, man is the cause of Mary's suffering. Mary and the baby Jesus together hold a pomegranate, a symbol of fecundity. The pomegranate in this place can be viewed as an external representation of Mary's internal fertility, her ovaries. She bears it in hand, just as she bears her son, another physical representation of her fertility.

The painting conveys a sense of calmness and inclusion through its lighting and circular composition - soft, continuous lines, and a light that gently illuminates Lady Madonna and Baby Jesus without casting any dark shadows on the angels surrounding the mother and the baby. Strong themes of fertility and childbirth are present throughout the image: the baby, in semi-fetal position, held in front of the reproductive organs (specifically the uterus) of the mother, and the pomegranate held by both, itself a ripe ovary of the pomegranate plant bearing seeds for reproduction, is a long-time symbol for fertility. Despite this strong imagery associated with childbirth, the calmness in the scene denies any physical suffering commonly associated with this painful process. However, our understanding of pain through the neuromatrix, a network of various ways of perceiving and filtering in the brain that influence our perception of pain, informs us that women with different cultural, physiological, neurological, and psychological conditions experience the pain of childbirth differently, and that the Virgin Mary's conditions under which she has given birth are beyond one's imagination, given the saintly portrayals of this painting.

Madonna of the Pomegranate