Madonnas in Need: The Art of Representing Social Issues

The Virgin Mary has been portrayed in art more than any other female historical figure. Furthermore, this icon's emotive and moral power to engage individually and collectively has resulted in the wide-spread use of the image of the 'destitute' Madonna to represent social injustice and human need in an array of media, including the publicity materials of fund-raising campaigns, photo-journalism and social documentary photography. This paper considers visual and ideological continuities and discontinuities between the Christian icon of the Madonna and 20th century social documentary photographs portraying women and children in need. It is suggested that the Madonna icon's enduring persuasive power might be in part due to its function as a site of multiplicity, convergence and paradox; a visual and conceptual location where oppositional positions are drawn together, such as heaven and earth; wealth and poverty; female and male; god and human; child and adult, in short a place where the impossible becomes possible. It is also proposed that 20th century social documentary Madonnas used to convey messages about need share representational and ideological similarities with a particular formation of the Madonna that emerged in the late Byzantine period known as the 'Madonna of humility'.