Rogier van der Weyden – Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin

It sometimes feels as if AI fakery is nothing new. The manipulation of digital photos to ensure subjects are all-smiling, skin blemish-free, the ‘best’ versions of themselves living wonderful lives in desirable, Instagrammable locations is commonplace today. But something similar was happening in Northern European Renaissance art too. In this painting, van der Weyden relocates the Virgin and Child to an elevated palace room with a centrally framed view to outside. This architecture in this landscape is much more utopian Netherland than Holy Land, as the beautiful blue green of a river or sea inlet harmonises with the pink walls of the town that sits either side of it. Two figures are seen standing behind a crenelated parapet, on a plinth raised slightly above a planted terrace (the enclosed garden is a familiar symbol of Mary’s virginity, her sealed womb), gazing away from us through one of the embrasures, as if in admiration of the civilised repose of the town and the gentle clemency of the climate and distant terrain. Although St. Luke himself is not depicted with a particularly handsome face, the exterior setting is clearly idealized, not so much in a modern bogus manner, but to evoke and reinforce the beatitude of the interior’s foregrounded figures. Scholars believe that the face of Luke here is actually a self-portrait of the artist, so by conflating the saint with his own person he may not be so far away from that kind of falsified self-actualisation so widespread in today’s social media age.

Rogier van der Weyden, Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin, 1435-40, oil and tempera on oak panel, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Mary is shown seated, nursing her baby, her chemise drawn back to offer her breast to the naked child. Her eyes are cast downwards towards his smiling, receptive face with his arms held out straight and his hands cocked at the wrist, as if in a hungry paroxysm of anticipation. Mary’s expression is one of tender solicitude admixed with pride and a suggestion of indulgent delight. Her centre-parted hair falls informally either side of her face in ringlets, tucked out of the way behind her ears, the better to perform her task, happily discharging her role as the life-sustaining mother of the son of God. Her clothing is rich and its abundant folds of dark lapis, purple and gold speak of her importance, her status.

Meanwhile, Saint Luke is shown half kneeling on a cushion, perched a little awkwardly in front of mother and child. He is making a drawing of the pair, holding his paper in his left hand and his silverpoint stylus in his right. It looks a little improbable and makes me think that he should be resting on a supportive surface to be able to make his drawing properly. Luke is known as one of the four gospel authors, but here it is his role as Saint Luke the Evangelist that is depicted, the patron saint of artists. His wrinkled forehead and incipient jowls are painted realistically and naturalistically rather than flatteringly and show a middle-aged man rather than a falsely flawless enhancement of one. The soft cap that covers an ample head of hair, is typical of one worn by a scholar or a doctor but would also be typical headgear for artists too. The work can be read as an allegory of the business of art making, elevating its significance, equating the artist with the sainted and his mission with the divine. Modest it is not.

The red of Luke’s robes is a gesture at his rank and authority. He is positioned at a level slightly above the mother and infant, and his gaze is directed a little higher still and is focussed on the gold and red brocade drapery behind them. Renaissance artists often used red clothing to symbolise blood sacrifice and Luke is thought by some to have been martyred although this is disputed. In any event, there is no doubting the power and authority that the colour symbolises for the figure. It is the same blood red as worn by cardinals and its anachronistic assignment here to a person highly unlikely to have worn it in his own life, is significant. Luke’s expression is not so much reverential as absorbed, as he appraises the artistic challenge of how to portray what van der Weyden has himself portrayed. How to give life, on paper, to the apotheosis of the new life in front of him.

The two slender Corinthian columns provide this work with its compositional structure, its sense of classical order, but they also define the boundary between the space inside the loggia and outside. Van der Weyden presents us both domains with an uncommon simultaneity that unites the ineffable serenity of the wider, infinite world beyond with close-at-hand domesticity and hallowed intimacy. The stained-glass oculus window located above the columns is similarly acting as an all-seeing god-like eye surveying everything occurring within and without. Its admittance of soft light is like the admission of the almighty’s power and the glory of his reign above. Its shape is a further symbol of the world in microcosm, a sign of divinely ordained shape-perfect providence.

In other circumstances, the close proximity of a man, however saintly, to the Blessed Virgin and Christ-child would seem transgressive. They occupy a tightly confined space in the painting, the adult bodies just a few feet apart from one another. So, the composition conveys a powerful sense of intimacy, a familiarity between them that supersedes the normal social conventions that might exist between a lady and a scholar-artisan. Mary doesn’t just tolerate Luke’s presence in the private act of breastfeeding; she enjoys a kind of communion with him. Legend has it that because Luke’s gospel was the only one of the four to include details of the childhood of Jesus that this must mean that Mary was his source, even that he may have acted as her amanuensis. So, this in turn implied a close relationship between them that the artist realises by having Luke engaged in his drawing while Mary prepares to suckle her infant. It is a sign of trust that Luke is permitted to witness her vulnerability and the close bond she has with the child at this moment.

A few other easy-to-miss details: firstly, the little wooden carving of Adam and Eve visible to the left of the baby’s head links the current scene to the Old Testament, and the ‘genesis’ of the first human lives, which together with the birth of Christ help frame the beginning and end of a holy narrative. Secondly, behind Luke we can see another chamber in which an open book is visible. This is either his gospel or The Acts of the Apostles, usually attributed to him. Below this sit further volumes and then further down, incongruously, a small ox. This is a beast that stands for faithful and uncomplaining service, just like Luke’s. At the same time, it was known as a sacrificial animal and so foreshadows the infant’s ultimate adult destiny as a figure of expiatory atonement.