05/28/2026
Throughout the month of May, Catholic Studies faculty offered their reflections on pieces of Marian art. They are so lovely and so Catholic Studies.
If you didn't receive them via email - or even if you did - we will share them here over the next few weeks, starting with Dr. John Boyle's ...
May is the month we honor Mary, our mother. To celebrate, I offer here a reflection on one of my favorite works of Marian art: Matthias Grünewald’s Madonna and Child in his Isenheim Altarpiece.
A challenge for the Catholic artist is how to communicate invisible reality through our senses. Grünewald’s infant Jesus is naked, and Mary holds him in a tattered blanket. He does not look comfortable. Mary is clothed in exquisite, sumptuous finery in stark contrast to the rags of the naked child.
This is not an historically accurate portrait, and Grünewald does not intend it to be, except for the mother’s gaze of affection.
So, what is happening? In the very ordinary human reality of clothing, Grünewald communicates the mystery of the Incarnation. God Himself, the eternal Son of the Father, has become man. That is an infinite step downward. It is to be naked in a tattered rag. He has entered into our state so far from his own.
At the same time, he is raising us up to a new and unimagined life. The first upon whom he conferred this new life was his mother in her sinlessness. He has clothed her in consummate spiritual riches, so beautiful and entirely undeserved. And he has done it by becoming one of us, taking on the tattered rags that he might clothe us in finery beyond our dreams.
And our response? To hold him close and to gaze upon him with affection and gratitude. The Catechism describes the process as God comes to meet man and man’s response to God. Grünewald expresses this foundational reality of Christian existence in the physical concreteness of the scene. So much to ponder.
John F. Boyle
Chair of the Department
Matthias Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece, 1512-1516
If you would like to receive our emails going forward, please share your information here: https://cas.stthomas.edu/departments/areas-of-study/catholic-studies/center-for-catholic-studies/newsletter/
Or email us directly! [email protected]
