Sistine Madonna

The Sistine Madonna by Raphael is one of the world's most well known paintings, together with a.o. Da Vinci's Last Supper and Mona Lisa.

Rudolf Steiner states it is "one of the noblest, most magnificent works of art in the history of mankind" (1913-01-30-GA062).

The 265 cm × 196 cm large oil painting by Raphael (1483-520) is currently in the museum of Dresden. The painting was commissioned in 1512 by Pope Julius II and was one of the last Madonnas painted by Raphael. The painting moved to Dresden from 1754. After World War II, it was relocated to Moscow for a decade before being returned to Germany.

The image of the Madonna and Child is a symbol of the eternally celestial or spiritual in the human being, that wafts down to the Earth out of the extraterrestrial .. whereas below, separated by clouds, we have everything that only proceeds from the earthly. The Mother and Child float toward us over the clouds that cover the globe — out of an indeterminate realm of the spiritual-supersensible — enveloped and surrounded by clouds that seem naturally to take on human form. One of them as though condenses to become the Child of the Madonna. (adapted from 1913-01-30-GA062)

The Madonna contains that which the human soul can bear out of her (the child, just as Isis the Horus boy): the true, higher human being (see Man's higher triad), slumbering in every human, the very best of human and that which is flowing and interweaving as spirit through the world. (adapted from 1909-04-29-GA057)

Aspects

for the meaning of Mary and Virgin Sophia in esoteric christianity, see the topic page Mary.
Christmas imagination: "the woman formed out of the clouds, endowed with the forces of the Earth, with the Moon-forces below, with the Sun-forces in the middle, and above, towards the head, with the forces of the stars. The picture of Mary with the little Jesus-child arises out of the cosmos itself. .. in the picture of Mary the mother, the folds of her robe following the forces of the Earth, while in the region of the breast her garment inwardly rounded, taking on the quicksilver form, so that here one has a feeling of inward enclosure. Here the Sun-forces can find entry, and the innocent Jesus-child, who must be thought of as having yet received no earthly nourishment, is the Sun-activity resting on Mary's arm, with the radiance of the stars above. .. the head and eyes of Mary, as though a light were shining out from within them towards men. And the Jesus-child in Mary's arm as though emerging from the rounded cloud-shapes, tender and lovable, inwardly sheltered; and the garment, subject to earthly gravity, expressing what the force of earthly gravity can become.." (1923-10-06-GA229)
healing effect
- "the picture of the Madonna has a healing effect – within the limits already discussed. When it is contemplated in such a way that is has an after-effect upon the human soul … it has a healing effect to this very day". The same was already the case for the picture of Isis with the Horus boy. (1908-08-05-GA105)
for more on Raphael on KRI - Karmic Relationships Individualities#KRI 52: Elijah - John Baptist - Raphael - Novalis
- influence of Raphael's deceased father on Raphael's painting - see Influence of deceased souls
- see also: The being of Elijah (and Mystery of John)

Madonna as universal symbol of the virgin mother

origin in the Chthonic and Eleusinian initiations, where the pupil was led in front of two pillarstatues, a male (Father Godhead, planetary spheres) and a female one (Mother, Earth), and after additional tests was led in front of a picture of a mother with a little child representing the god Jacchos (= Christ) who would come one day (1923-12-14-GA232)
in different cultures (1909-04-29-GA057)
- India: the goddess with Krishna at her breast
- Egypt: Isis with the child Horus
  - The Sistine Madonna is the christened picture of the Isis with the Horus child (1920-12-24-GA202)
  - see also: Egyptian mythology
- China (mentioned without further details in 1909-04-29-GA057)
Other paintings
- Michelangelo's Pieta
- Raphael's various Madonnas (see also: The two Jesus children, eg Schema FMC00.097)
for additional general information, see also wikipedia topic page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_(art)

Inspirational quotes

1909-04-29-GA057

In the Sistine Madonna we have a picture of the human soul born of the spiritual universe, and - springing from this soul - the highest that a human being can bring forth: Man's own spiritual birth, what within him is a new begetting of cosmic creative activity.

1908-08-05-GA105

Man of today has but a dim conception of those ancient ideas regarding the inner relationships between wisdom and health, between science and the art of healing ... when we look at the picture of the Madonna and child as painted by Raphael—it reminds us of Isis with the child Horus, the Goddess on whose temple was inscribed the words: “I AM, who was, who is, who will be; my veil no mortal can raise.” This Goddess was mysteriously connected with the art of healing ... this points to a very mysterious fact.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.581A: shows the central detail of the Madonna with Child arising from a radiant heaven filled with angelic faces.

Schema FMC00.581: shows a high resolution picture of Raphael's painting of the Sistine Madonna

Lecture coverage and references

1905-11-25-GA262

If people are able to understand real forms, such as the birth of the soul from the etheric clouds of the Sistine Madonna, then there will soon be no more spiritless matter for them.

1908-08-05-GA105

The unique fact lying at the foundation of temple-sleep is that among the Egyptian priests, and in ancient civilizations in general, wisdom was held to be very closely bound up with the art of healing and with health. The Man of today has but a dim conception of those ancient ideas regarding the inner relationships between wisdom and health, between science and the art of healing; and it will be the task of the anthroposophical movement to direct humanity once more to that conception of the spiritual through which wisdom and the art of healing will be brought again into close connection. This recalls what was said in the last lecture. It recalls that ancient figure of which we were reminded when we looked at the picture of the Madonna and child, as painted by Raphael—it reminds us of Isis with the child Horus, the Goddess on whose temple was inscribed the words: “I AM, who was, who is, who will be; my veil no mortal can raise.”
This Goddess was mysteriously connected with the art of healing; she was regarded as the teacher of the Egyptian priesthood in this respect. There is a remarkable statement taking us back to the very earliest ages of antiquity that shows how Isis was particularly interested in the health of mankind at the time when she was placed among mortals.

This points to a very mysterious fact.

1909-04-29-GA057

Isis with Horus boy and picture of Madonna

from RSH

The picture of the Madonna with the child in Christian representation like Raphael's (Raffaello Sanzio) Sistine Madonna, in other religions as in India as goddess with the Krishna child and in ancient Egypt as Isis with the Horus boy. The meaning of the Isis-Osiris myth. The threefold Isis and the mothers in Goethe's Faust: “Indeed, our human soul bears three natures in itself: a willing-like nature, its being contained in the deepest grounds, a feeling-like nature and a wisdom nature. These are the three soul mothers; they face us in the three figures of the Egyptian Isis.” “Hence, the reborn Isis faces us in the Madonna, as it were, in suitable way heightened and transfigured.” “On the other hand, the Madonna contains that which the human soul can bear out of her (remark: as Isis the Horus boy): the true, higher human being, slumbering in every human, the very best of human and that which is flowing and interweaving as spirit through the world.“

quote A

...
Now let us try to turn what has been said into a physical picture. Let us ask ourselves:
Do we not possess a physical picture of what has been described, where the spiritual world is represented by cloud formations out of which the spiritual is born in the form of angels' heads portraying the human soul? Have we not in the Virgin's figure in Raphael's Sistine Madonna a picture born out of the divine spiritual world?
Let us go on to ask:
What becomes of a Man whose soul has been cleansed and purified, who has ascended to higher knowledge and has unfolded in his soul those spiritual images that give life within him to the divine, living and weaving through the world? This human being who gives birth in Man to the higher Man, to a Man who represents a little world in the great world, who out of his purified soul brings forth the true higher Man — what is he?
He cannot be otherwise described than by the word clairvoyant. If we try to make a picture of the soul that gives birth to the higher man out of himself, out of the spiritual universe, we need only call to mind the picture of the Sistine Madonna, the Madonna with the wonderful Child in her arms.
Thus in the Sistine Madonna we have a picture of the human soul born of the spiritual universe, and springing from this soul the highest that a human being can bring forth — Man's own spiritual birth, what within him is a new begetting of cosmic creative activity.

quote B about the Madonna as a universal symbol of all ages and cultures

All that surrounds us in the world has sprung from the spirit we seek in the soul. Thus the soul has sprung from the divine Father-spirit living and weaving throughout the universe, bearing the Son of wisdom Who is like unto this Father-spirit, of Whom He is a repetition.
We understand now the way in which Goethe approached this problem in all its mystical significance when he tried to gather the whole content of Faust together in the “Chorus Mysticus”, where he speaks of the human soul as the 'eternal feminine' that draws us onward to the universal spirit of the world.
This was Goethe's attitude to his Madonna problem at the very end of Faust. From the figure which the portrayal of the Madonna has assumed, even today it is hardly possible to recognize fully what is here expressed as in a picture which is nevertheless founded on profound truth.
If, however, we trace this Madonna problem back to its origin, we shall realize that in very truth the mightiest human problem, though closely veiled, confronts us in the figure of the Madonna.
These Madonnas are, it is true, greatly changed from the simple figure of the catacombs in the first Christian centuries, where we find Madonnas with the Child groping for the mother's breast. From this first simple figure, having little to do with art, it is a long way to the fifteenth century, to Michaelangelo and Raphael, where after many transformations the Child and the Madonna have become in the modern sense much more in accordance with art — in accordance with the art of painting. It is, however, as if these supreme artists proceeded from no very full knowledge but a definite feeling of the deeper truth of the Madonna problem. Very beautiful experiences arise in us when we stand before the so-called Pieta of Michaelangelo in St. Peter's in Rome, where the Madonna is sitting with the corpse across her knees — thus the Madonna is at the age when Christ had already passed through death but is portrayed with all the beauty of youth. In Michaelangelo's day it was a much discussed question why at her age he had given the Madonna this youthful beauty. When asked about it he replied how it was well known that virgins long preserve the freshness of youth — and this is no mere belief but spiritually derived knowledge. Thus why should he not be right in representing the Mother of God at this age still with all the freshness of youth? It is a remarkable conception here expressed by Michaelangelo! Although it is not openly expressed by Raphael, nevertheless we feel it to be there in his pictures.
We can, however, understand this conception only by going far back into the times when what meets us in the Madonnas as unconscious art was still outwardly living.

We might go very far back, and actually we should find the Madonna problem all over the world. We might go to old India and there find the Goddess with the Krishna child at her breast; in a Chinese cult we might find similar pictures.

1913-01-30-GA062

Nominally great figures, these popes were certainly not what Savonarola or his like-minded comrades would have called Christians. The papacy had passed over into heathenism, not in the old, but in a new sense. There was not much trace of Christian piety in these circles, though certainly of the desire for splendour and lust for power. Raphael becomes the servant of this heathenized Christendom. But such that something is created out of his soul by which the Christian ideas appear in many respects in a new form. We see the most heartfelt, the most delightful content of the world of Christian legends arise in the Madonna pictures and other works of Raphael. What a stark contrast there is between the inwardness of soul in Raphael's works and all that went on around him in Rome, when he became the outer servant of the popes. How was all this possible? Already, with his apprenticeship in Perugia, and then his time in Florence, we see how disparate were the actual circumstances and Raphael's inner nature. This was quite especially the case in Rome, where he created pictures of worldwide renown. Yet Raphael and his surroundings have to be taken into account if we are to acquire a proper idea of what lived within him.
Let us allow the pictures of Raphael to work upon us. For the moment, this cannot be done with individual pictures, though one of his best-known paintings may be singled out, so as to come to an understanding of the characteristic soul quality in Raphael.
It is the Sistine Madonna in nearby Dresden, which almost everyone knows from the numerous reproductions found throughout the world. This shows itself to be one of the noblest, most magnificent works of art in the history of mankind.
We see the Mother and Child float toward us over the clouds that cover the globe — out of an indeterminate realm of the spiritual-supersensible — enveloped and surrounded by clouds that seem naturally to take on human form. One of them as though condenses to become the Child of the Madonna. She calls forth a quite particular feeling in us. In permeating us inwardly, this enables us to forget all legendary ideas from which the image of the Madonna derives, as well as all Christian traditions that tell of the Madonna.
I should like to characterize, not in a dull manner, but as large-heartedly as possible what we are able to feel in regard to the Madonna. In considering human evolution in the sense of spiritual science we transcend the materialistic view. According to the natural scientific view, the lower creatures evolved first, ascending as far as the human being. However, from the standpoint of spiritual science we have to see the human being as having an existence over and above the lower kingdoms of nature. With the human being we have, in spiritual scientific terms, what is much older than all the creatures that stand in relative proximity to him in the kingdoms of nature.
For spiritual science the human being existed before the animal, the plant or even the mineral kingdom came into being. We look back into far distant perspectives of time in which what is now our innermost nature was already there, only later to unite itself with the kingdoms that stand below the human being. Thus, we see the essential being of Man descend, that in truth can only be comprehended in raising ourselves to the supersensible, to what is pre-earthly. By means of spiritual science we come to recognize that no adequate conception of the human being is to be gained from forces connected only with the earth. We must raise ourselves to super-terrestrial regions to see the approach of the human being. To speak metaphorically, we must feel how something floats toward the earthly — in turning our gaze, for instance, to the sunrise in a region such as that in which Raphael lived, to the gold-gleaming sunrise. There, even in natural existence, we can come to feel how something must be added to what is earthly, of forces that we can connect with the sun. Then there arises for us, out of the golden lustre, the symbol of what floats down in order to take on the vesture of the earthly.
In Perugia quite especially, one can have the sense that the eye beholds the same sunrise seen by Raphael and that the natural phenomenon of the rising sun grants us a feeling of what is celestial in the human being. Out of the clouds shone through by the sun-gold there can arise for us — or it can at least appear so — the image of the Madonna and Child as a symbol of the eternally celestial in the human being, that wafts down to the earth out of the extraterrestrial. And below, separated by clouds, we have everything that only proceeds from the earthly. Our feeling-perception can rise to the most exalted spiritual heights, if — not theoretically and not abstractly but with our whole soul — we abandon ourselves to what affects us in Raphael's Madonna. It is a quite natural feeling one can have in regard to the world-famous picture in Dresden. And I should like to provide an example showing how it has had such an effect on some people, in quoting words written by Goethe's friend, Karl August, Duke of Weimar, concerning the Sistine Madonna, following a visit to Dresden:
With the Raphael adorning the collection there, it was for me as when, having climbed the heights of the Gotthard all day and traversed the Urseler Loch, one all of a sudden looks down on the blossoming, green valley below. As often as I saw it and looked away again, it always appeared only like an apparition. To me, even the most beautiful Corregios were only human pictures; in memory, their beautiful forms palpable to the senses. — Raphael, however, remained always like a mere breath, like one of those appearances the gods send us in female form, in our happiness or sorrow; like pictures that present themselves to us again in sleep, upon awakening or in dreaming, and having once seen, appear to us day and night ever afterwards, moving us in our inmost soul.
And it is remarkable, what is to be found in following up the literature of those able to express something of a profound nature in viewing the Sistine Madonna, as also other Raphael pictures. Again and again we find comparisons with light, with the sun, with what is luminous and what is spring-like in nature.
...
Entering in feeling into the way in which Raphael himself must have felt, we have to say to ourselves: In looking at a picture such as the Madonna della Sedia it strikes us, in contemplating the Madonna with the Child, along with the Child John, that we forget the rest of the world — forget above all that this Child held by the Madonna could be linked with what we know as the Golgotha experience. With Raphael's picture we forget everything that followed as the life of Christ-Jesus. We give ourselves over entirely to the moment seen here. We have simply a Mother and Child, of which Herman Grimm said, it is the most exalted mystery to be met with in the outer world. We view the moment in serenity, as though nothing could connect onto it, either before or after. We are wholly taken up by the relationship of the Madonna and Child, separated from everything else. Thus, in always showing us the eternal in a given moment, Raphael's creations appear fundamentally complete in themselves.
...
Fundamentally, the works of Raphael first embarked on their triumphal march when, with love and devotion, innumerable engravings, photographs and reproductions of his works were made. Their effect continues right into the reproductions. One can understand Herman Grimm when he relates that he once hung a large collotype of the Sistine Madonna in his room and on entering, it was always as though he were not fully permitted to enter — as though the room now belonged to the picture as a sanctuary of the Madonna. Some will already have experienced how the soul actually becomes a different being than it otherwise is in ordinary life, when truly able to give itself over to a picture by Raphael — even a mere reproduction. Certainly, the originals will some day no longer exist.
But, do the originals not still exist in other realms?
...

1916-11-01-GA292

1917-01-17-GA292

1919-03-16-GA189

1920-12-24-GA202

from RSH

Parallels between the Egyptian and our epochs (example Kepler).
The Sistine Madonna is the christened picture of the Isis with the Horus child.
Isis myth: Osiris as solar representative is killed by Typhon (= Ahriman), is found by his wife Isis in Asia and brought back to Egypt. Typhon dismembers the corpse in 14 parts that are buried at different places. Osiris is the representative of the solar forces and - at the same time - the representative of the force that fructifies the Earth. These facts are also preserved in the measures of one of the (presumably Cheops) pyramids: The shade disappears from the spring solstice up to the autumn solstice, because it falls in the base.

1923-10-06-GA229

describes the Sistine Madonna as a Christmas imagination

Now imagine how this could be portrayed. First we have the Moon-Earth element, spread out below the Earth's surface. Then, going out into the great spaces, we find a raying forth from man into the cosmos, and this could be shown as a heavenly Earth-star radiance, sent out by the Earth into the cosmos. The head of Mary is like a radiant star, which means that her whole countenance and bearing must give expression to this star-radiant quality [see BBD].
If then we turn to the breast, we come to the breathing process; to the Sun-element, the child, forming itself out of the clouds in the atmosphere, shot through by the rays of the Sun.
Further down we come to the Moon-like, salt-forming forces, given outward expression by bringing the limbs into dynamic relation with the Earth and letting them arise out of the salt and the Moon-elements in the Earth. Here we have the Earth in so far as it is inwardly transfigured by the Moon.
All this would really have to be shown through a kind of rainbow colouring. For if we were to look from the cosmos towards the Earth, through the shining of the stars, it would be as though the Earth were wishing to shine inwardly, beneath its surface, in rainbow colours. On the Earth we have something related to the Earth-forces, to gravity and to the formation of the limbs, which can be expressed only through the garment which follows the Earth-forces in its folds. So we should have the garment down below, in relation to the Earth-forces. Then we should have to portray, a little higher up, that which gives expression to the Earth-Moon element. We could even picture the Moon, if we wished to symbolise; but the Moon-element is clearly expressed in the configuration of the Earth.
Higher up still, we must bring in that which comes forth from the Moon-element. We see how the clouds are permeated with many human heads, pressing downwards; one of them is condensed into the Sun resting on Mary's arm: the Jesus-child. And all this must be completed, in an upward direction, through the star-radiance expressed in the countenance of Mary.
If we understand the depths of winter, how it shows us the connection of the cosmos with man, with man who takes up the birth-forces in the Earth, the only possible way of presenting the woman is in this form: formed out of the clouds, endowed with the forces of the Earth: with the Moon-forces below, with the Sun-forces in the middle, and above, towards the head, with the forces of the stars. The picture of Mary with the little Jesus-child arises out of the cosmos itself.
.. everything we feel at Christmas-time flows together into the picture of Mary and the child — that picture which hovered so often before painters in earlier times, especially in the first Christian centuries, and of which the last echoes have been preserved in Raphael's Sistine Madonna.
The Sistine Madonna was born out of the great instinctive knowledge of nature and the spirit which prevailed in ancient times. For it is a picture of the Imagination which must in fact come to a man who transposes his inner vision into the secrets of Christmas in such a way that they become for him a living picture.
.. out of all that we can feel at Christmas time, arises the picture of Mary the mother, the folds of her robe following the forces of the Earth, while in the region of the breast — even these details are apparent in the painting — her garment has to be inwardly rounded, taking on the quicksilver form, so that here one has a feeling of inward enclosure. Here the Sun-forces can find entry, and the innocent Jesus-child, who must be thought of as having yet received no earthly nourishment, is the Sun-activity resting on Mary's arm, with the radiance of the stars above. That is how we have to represent the head and eyes of Mary, as though a light were shining out from within them towards men. And the Jesus-child in Mary's arm must appear as though emerging from the rounded cloud-shapes, tender and lovable, inwardly sheltered; and then the garment, subject to earthly gravity, expressing what the force of earthly gravity can become [see BBD].

1924-02-13-GA352

from RSH:

Raphael painted his Sistine Madonna originally for a banner of procession, he himself only painted the Madonna and the child.

Madonna cult

1908-08-05-GA105

from RSH

The curative effect of the temple-sleep in ancient Egypt: The priest transformed the dream pictures of the sick person into etheric pictures of the ancient Atlantean gods.
The picture of the Isis with the Horus boy had an even stronger effect. Isis is the reproductive power of the moon which was effective in the asexual reproduction until the Lemurian age (Horus comes into being through a sunbeam of Osiris = sun). Her curative effect has partially kept so far: “We can experience something of what remains of this in that wonderful symbol of the virgin mother which is preserved in the picture of the Madonna.
From the standpoint of spiritual science, it can certainly be emphasised that the picture of the Madonna has a healing effect – within the limits already discussed. When it is contemplated in such a way that is has an after-effect upon the human soul … it has a healing effect to this very day.” (I.e. if humankind becomes absorbed in the spiritual wisdom).

1923-12-14-GA232

from RSH:

Portrayal of the Chthonic and Eleusinian initiations, which acquainted the pupil with the secrets of natural forces and physical substances, especially those of the planetary metal forces (examples Saturn – lead, moon – silver). The pupil was also led in front of two pillarstatues, a male (Father Godhead, planetary spheres) and a female one (Mother, Earth). After additional tests he was led in front of a picture of a mother with a little child representing the god Jacchos (= Christ) who would come one day. That was not understood completely later in the Christian pictures or icons of the Madonna (as the Sistine Madonna). “It still awaits understanding.”

Discussion

Related pages

References and further reading

Marielene Putscher: 'Raphaels sixtinische Madonna : das Werk und seine Wirkung' (1955)
Theodor Hetzer: 'Die Sixtinische Madonna' (1991)
Michael Ladwein: 'Raphaels Sixtinische Madonna : Zeugnisse aus zwei Jahrhunderten deutschen Geisteslebens' (1993)
Robert N. Nuber: 'Die heilende Madonnenbildreihe nach Felix Peipers und Rudolf Steiner' (1997)
Loek Dullaart: 'De madonna's van Raffaël' (2005)
Harald Schwaetzer, Stefan Hasler, Elena Filippi: 'Raffaels Sixtinische Madonna : eine Vision im Dialog' (2012)
Brian Gray: 'Discovering the Zodiac in the Raphael Madonna Series' (2013)
- Rudolf Steiner described the healing effects of Raphael’s Madonnas in August 1908, and from 1908 to 1911 he directed Dr. Felix Peipers to arrange fifteen images as a therapeutic meditation for patients suffering from emotional disturbances. Sometimes called the “Raphael Madonna Series,” these fifteen images invite active contemplation. Each painting can awaken inner visualizations that lift us into communion in realms beyond the physical world, stirring our feelings of wonder and reverence and opening our souls to divine mysteries.
Christopher Bamford: 'Healing Madonnas' (2017)
- Exploring the Sequence of Madonna Images Created by Rudolf Steiner and Felix Peipers for Use in Therapy and Meditation
- In a 1908 lecture, Steiner addressed the subterranean spiritual links connecting ancient Egypt and our own time and described certain healing functions of the Isis Mysteries. He connected the Madonna Mary, in a sense, as the evolutionary metamorphosis of Isis, focusing on Raphael’s visionary image of her in the Sistine Madonna.

Internet digital

creativityandhealing.podia.com/the-madonna-sequence (1h45' video course)