A week ago I was in the
church of St Martinus, in
Sint-Martens-Bodegem, for the first time ever. I didn't have a camera with me, or I would have snapped a shot of the statue of a visibly pregnant Mary that stood before the altar. By chance there have been
news reports about another such statue (it must be said, much more visibly pregnant) in America. And reading the report just linked to (following a link from
this blog) I was struck (and it seems I was not the only one
so struck) by the claim that representations of a
pregnant or
breastfeeding Mary were uncommon in art because considered undignified. (This is perhaps why there are so few images of Jesus being born in a stable or nailed to a cross?)
If such representations really are uncommon, I have been fortunate enough to see a disproportionate number. Not so very far from here is the miraculous statue of
Our Lady of Halle, whose miracles were
written up by none less than Neo-Stoic philosopher
Justus Lipsius. The church is one of the very few in the Low Countries to retain anything of its medieval interior, thanks to the Virgin's saving it from the Calvinist forces who
attempted to surprise the town in 1580.
And on
wikimedia commons: the best such painting imaginable:
This is without even considering representations of pregnancy which "peep", such as
this or
this...
If the line above this one is blank, click here to read on ...
