Art and religion]]> Grief]]> Mary, Blessed Virgin, Saint]]> McCahon, Colin]]> Reproduction permission courtesy of the Colin McCahon Research and Publication Trust.]]> Image]]> Still Image]]> Drawings]]> Pen works]]> Art]]> Nineteen forties]]> Art and religion ]]> Christian art and symbolism]]> Jesus Christ]]> Mary, Blessed Virgin, Saint]]> Symbolism in art]]> Words in art]]> Christian art and symbolism]]> Crosses in art]]> Symbolism in art]]> Art, Abstract]]> Purity and the innocence of childhood are memorialised in this momentous post-war work but it also carries art historical and filmic references. The Virgin Compared, McCahon revealed, owes its being both to the grisly sixteenth century painter Grunewald and to that cruel and beautiful film, Open City. Director Rossellini explained his aim in that film as being to show that acts of heroism and human kindness obviously spring from faith, and the brutalities of war from cynicism and absence of moral code.

McCahon's work was difficult to sell and was often ridiculed when it was exhibited. The religious paintings in particular attracted derisory comments from critics such as A.R.D. Fairburn who described them as being like graffiti on the walls of some celestial lavatory.

Formerly in the collection of Charles Brasch, this painting was reproduced in Landfall, the literary magazine he edited and used to help promote artistic reputations. Very few understood the painters need to map the relationship between man and his God as John Caselberg describes it, but without their crucial support McCahon would not have continued painting into the 1950s and beyond.

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McCahon, Colin]]> Reproduction permission courtesy of the Colin McCahon Research and Publication Trust.]]> Image]]> Still Image]]> Paintings]]> Oil paintings]]> Art]]> Twentieth century]]>