AT, the Cross
her station keeping,
stood the mournful Mother weeping,
close to Jesus to the last.
Through her heart,
His sorrow sharing,
all His bitter anguish bearing,
now at length the sword has passed.
O how sad and sore
distressed
was that Mother, highly blest,
of the sole-begotten One.
Duccio was a painter during the 13
th
Century when the harsh Byzantine style was in use. It was a highly symbolic way
of painting, which was not used for its beauty, but was thought of as a window
into the spiritual world by using a pictorial means to express a certain mood.
Duccio heralded in the transition to Renaissance painting by softening his
works of art and making them more beautiful and pleasing to the eye than his
predecessors did. Although less austere than other byzantine artists, Duccio
did continue to employ the intensification of the spiritual mood through his
symbolism. In this painting, the Virgin’s robe is a dark color contrasted by
the bright colors of those surrounding her, which serve to intensify the mood
of her sadness. The postures of the figures in this also lend a certain aspect
of mourning to the painting, while the sadness of mother and Son is heightened
by the embrace with which the Virgin receives her Son. Mother of Sorrows, pray
for us.
