Madonna, in Christian art, depiction of the Virgin Mary; the term is usually restricted to those representations that are devotional rather than narrative and that show her in a nonhistorical context and emphasize later doctrinal or sentimental significance. The Madonna is accompanied most often by the infant Christ, but there are several important types that show her alone.
The theme of the Madonna and Child was rare in the first centuries of early Christian art (c. 3rd–6th century). In 431, however, the establishment of Mary’s title of Theotokos (“Mother of God”) definitively affirmed the full deity of Christ. Thereafter, to emphasize this concept, an enthroned Madonna and Child were given a prominent place in monumental church decoration.
Byzantine art developed a great number of Madonna types. All are illustrated on icons, and one or another type was usually pictured prominently on the eastern wall of Byzantine churches below the image of Christ; the location dramatized her role as mediator between Christ and the congregation. The major types of the Madonna in Byzantine art are the nikopoia (“bringer of victory”), an extremely regal image of the Madonna and Child enthroned; the hodēgētria (“she who points the way”), showing a standing Virgin holding the Child on her left arm; and the blacherniotissa (from the Church of the Blachernes, which contains the icon that is its prototype), which emphasizes her role as intercessor, showing her alone in an orant, or prayer posture, with the Child pictured in a medallion on her breast. The Virgin also figured prominently as an intercessor in the group of the Deësis, where she and St. John the Baptist appear as intercessors on either side of Christ. In addition to these rather ceremonial types, the Virgin also appears in the less-frequently represented, more intimate types of the galaktotrophousa, in which she nurses the Child, and the glykophilousa, in which the Child caresses her cheek while she seems sadly to contemplate his coming Passion.
In the West, particularly with the spread of devotional images in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages, the theme of the Madonna was developed into a number of additional types, in general less rigidly defined than those of the East but often modeled on Byzantine types. As a rule, Western types of the Madonna sought to inspire piety through the beauty and tenderness rather than the theological significance of the subject.
One of the earliest strictly Western Madonna types is a standing Gothic Madonna, a lyrical image of the smiling Virgin and playful Child, which was modeled on the Byzantine hodēgētria and found its finest expression in sculpture in the 13th century. When, in the 14th century, painted altarpieces became common, the Madonna enthroned, derived from the nikopoia, was a favourite subject for a time; it was particularly popular in Italy as the maestà, a very formal representation of the enthroned Madonna and Child surrounded by angels and sometimes saints.
More personal depictions of the figures began to emerge in the 14th century. By far the most popular type in the West throughout the Renaissance and into the Baroque period was that derived from the glykophilousa. Though this type has many variants, it usually depicts a Virgin of grave expression, turning her gaze away from the playful Child.
Other, less-intimate Madonna types are the Italian sacra conversazione, depicting a formal grouping of saints around the Madonna and Child, and the northern themes of the Madonna of the rose garden, which symbolizes Mary’s virginity, and the seven sorrows of Mary, showing seven swords piercing the Virgin’s heart.
Three major Madonna types showing the Virgin alone have theological significance. As the Madonna of mercy, which flourished in the 15th century, the Virgin spreads her mantle protectively over a group of the faithful. The immacolata, which in the 17th century emphasized her Immaculate Conception, or perpetual freedom from original sin, shows her as a young girl descending from the heavens, supported by a crescent moon and crowned by stars. The Madonna of the rosary, which until the 16th century also omitted the Child, shows the Virgin giving the rosary to St. Dominic, founder of the order that spread its use.
As did most religious art, the theme of the Madonna suffered a decline in the major arts after the 17th century. Representations of the Madonna and Child, however, continued to be important in popular art into the 20th century, most following 16th- and 17th-century models; the few examples of the subject produced by “fine” artists are too individual to be classified into types. See also Pietà.