What does it look like?

It is a model of a woman, who is crying. She is wearing a blue cloak, which forms a sort of hood. It is quite a bit smaller than life-size, but very realistic. The detail is very fine, especially the thinness of the cloak and the glass tear on her face.

The woman is the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. She is crying because she has seen her son dying by crucifixion (a form of torturous death, where someone was nailed to a cross and left to die).

Who, what and where?

The sculptor is Pedro de Mena, (1628 – 1688). He was born in Andalucía, in the south of Spain.

The statue was produced as a devotional aid: an object that would inspire people in their prayers. The person who ordered it was almost certainly very rich. Records show that a sculpture called a ‘Dolorida Madre’, (sorrowful mother in Spanish), was commissioned by Don Juan de Austria, (1629-79), one of the sons of Philip IV of Spain. This might be that object.

Mary is an important figure in Christianity because Christians believe that God became a human being, and was born to Mary. The statue also points to the end of Jesus’s life, on the cross. In that way, it is as much about something that isn’t shown (the dead body of Jesus) as it is about what you can see. Sometimes, the two are combined in a sculpture called a pieta, like Michelangelo’s famous depiction of Mary with the dead body of Jesus on her lap, in St Peter’s in Rome.

Christianity thinks it is important that God shares with human beings in all they go through. Here we see Him suffering the worst aspect of human life. Christians who prayed with it would also believe in the Resurrection: which is about God’s ultimate defeat of death, when Jesus rose from death to new life. Again, that is something that is not shown here but is important in understanding the bigger picture behind this sculpture.

Why is it significant to the study of religion?

It relates to the private side of a very public faith, to the central aspects of Christian belief, (the incarnation, the death of Christ, and by implication, his resurrection). It shows that religions deal with all aspects of human life and of human emotion. It raises important points about the place of art in religion, here especially in Christianity.

Christians have often disagreed about art: in the eighth and ninth centuries, many Christians in the Byzantine Empire turned against images in churches, as they were worried it might lead to idolatry: the worship of material things rather than God. Meetings of church leaders argued about whether it is right to depict Jesus or the saints. In the end, the side in favour of images won the day, (at what is called the Seventh Ecumenical Council). They said that since God had become a human being in Jesus, it was now possible to depict holy things physically.

The question became of importance during the Protestant Reformation, when some Protestant leaders again opposed images. We can see the results of this in the smashed statues at Ely Cathedral. In contrast, the Roman Catholic Church became even more committed to religious art as a way to make religious belief more real. This statue is an example of that. To this day, we find these trends among the different Christian traditions. For instance, parishes churches in the Church of England will look different inside according to which side of those arguments they identify with: some are more colourful, and filled with art, if they align with the catholic heritage of the Church of England, while others  are more austere, or full of everyday things, if they align more with the Protestant aspect of the same church.