This painting follows to the letter the dedication that the priest Juan Antonio Genovesi used for preaching from 1722 onward. In this year, in Palermo, the Jesuit asked a lay sister for the Virgin Mary to reveal herself in the way that she wanted to be represented, and the Virgin sent a vision. After a failed interpretation from the summoned painter, the Virgin made herself visible again to the woman in the same way that she had appeared originally, so that the lay sister could memorize her and she could be painted.
Years later, another Jesuit called Jose Maria Genovesi, perhaps a relation to the previous man, brought the image to Mexico, as it was chosen by raffle to be in the Villa de Leon, arriving in Guanajuato in 1732. The work in the Museum shows the vision of the lay sister as it is often represented: the Virgin in white, with a blue mantle, holding the Baby in one of her arms, who takes a flaming heart (burned from love) from a basket offered to him by an angel. With the other hand, the Virgin takes a soul that hangs from her to prevent it from falling into the mouth of Leviathan, a symbol of sin. Two angels fly over the scene with the crown that they will put on the Queen of Heaven.
The painting in the Museum is very interesting from a material point of view, as well as from a stylistic perspective.[1] Both the artistic and craftsmanship features have certain characteristics that make it difficult to date them. With regard to its pictorial style, it seems that the image was a work done by an unskilled painter, as we see a certain hardness and brusqueness in his strokes and the handling of volumes and proportion of the figures. However, unlike how these types of artists tackle the nakedness of the soul taken by the Virgin, in this work it is evident that the artist was interested in the representation of its anatomy, which is more consistent with more expressive, academic, or later work. This discrepancy between the handling of the human body and the general, more popular tone of the piece make it impossible to specify exactly whether it was a work done by a painter from the 19th century influenced by earlier pictorial tradition but with some academic interests or influences, or a painter from the late 18th century taking a very particular model that already represents changes in the representation of the figure with more academic intentions.
The results in the field of material analysis are consistent with these discrepancies since the tin plate on which the work is painted was more common in the 19th century, although the pigments are consistent with the 18th century. These types of problems in the study of New Spanish painting denote that although the knowledge of art had progressed a great deal, there was still greater depth needed in the link between the style and analysis of materials, as well as the history of the use and importation of the raw materials used by its creators.
[1]. Study by Jose Luis Ruvalcaba Sil, April 2012, pp. 14-20.
This painting follows to the letter the dedication that the priest Juan Antonio Genovesi used for preaching from 1722 onward. In this year, in Palermo, the Jesuit asked a lay sister for the Virgin Mary to reveal herself in the way that she wanted to be represented, and the Virgin sent a vision. After a failed interpretation from the summoned painter, the Virgin made herself visible again to the woman in the same way that she had appeared originally, so that the lay sister could memorize her and she could be painted.
