According to Luke 1:39-45, Mary visited Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, when Elizabeth was pregnant “and the baby leapt in her womb.” But there is no meeting of the infants Jesus and John in the Bible. The first depiction of their meeting was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci.
“Having invented this motive and used it once. Leonardo abandoned it with all its permutations and combinations to be worked out by Raphael. The Bell Jardiniere, Madonna with the Goldfinch, Madonna of the Meadow and The Esterhazy Madonna are variations on a theme by Leonardo, which as any musician knows, does not make them less beautiful or personal.”
—Kenneth Clark, Leonardo da Vinci (1958)
But comparing Da Vinci’s and Raphael’s portrayal of the scene does epitomize the difference between them. In The Virgin of the Rocks, John is that baby who “leapt in the womb,” his whole being concentrated on adoring Jesus and reaching out to him. Jesus recognizes and blesses John with an infant seriosity. The angel supports Jesus and points to John; Mary holds John with her hand around his back; she protects Jesus with her outstretched hand; and the most amazing thing is that she includes both John and Jesus in her gentle loving glance.
Also the plants grow.
I don’t call myself an atheist anymore—I’m an antitheist, and yet this painting means so much to me—go figure.
In The Madonna of the Goldfinch, John is a good-natured child offering the goldfinch (a symbol of the Resurrection) as he would any other toy to a limp looking Jesus who looks at John and clumsily pats the birds’ head. Mary looks vaguely at the two of them and holds her book, signifying her deep religiosity. Raphael’s figures are always posing.
The trees and scattered plants are boilerplate.
I am reminded of the many hours I spent drawing the model in art schools and studios and the several hours I spent being a model. After a few moments any pose becomes torture and every model’s body lacks motivation. How else to learn to draw the human body though?
In Raphael’s Alba Madonna, John is kneeling offering Jesus the cross as if he is playing a role assigned to him in a school play. Jesus wraps his hand around the cross, but he is not really looking at John and not understanding the meaning of what he is being given or the cost of it-—and Mary is trying to look sincere engaged. In this and in all of Raphael’s paintings, glances never quite meet.
A friend of mine pointed out that I’m not being fair, comparing Raphael to Da Vinci, who was a genius. Perhaps, but I am trying to understand the attraction—what people see in Raphael.
I don’t think that Raphael wasn’t able to make his figures connect—he doesn’t seem to want to. He had his own drive—to represent rather than to embody and to convey a deep serenity in his utterly balanced compositions rather than the intensity of motivation. Mary is a nice bourgeois mother and the babies are just babies.
Maybe if you are a Christian, that is enough: The figures are symbolic depictions of a system of belief akin to icons.
In Doris Lessing’s Canopus in Argos she explores the idea that more advanced planetary visitors come down to “help” the inhabitants of Earth to become more enlightened and then the Earthlings mix up their teachings into religions that miss the point. For example, three aliens visit tribal villages and tell them that all of their children are special and should be loved. Then the villagers mix it all up into The Magi, one special child and all the rest.
Zachary Fine wrote a very nice essay in The New Yorker* about trying to like Raphael.
“Just think of all those vacant Madonnas, structurally perfect compositions, and obedient daydreams of antiquity. A modern eyeball can handle only so much before it starts to derange itself in search of a single painterly quirk or sliver of personality.”
However, Fine managed (barely) to find something in Raphael, homing in on the portraits.
I do like The School… which just made it to the Met on a screen. It’s a deep space filled with the light of Reason and it doesn’t seem to matter that the philosophers are posing—they are having their picture taken.
—CNQ
*Was Raphael the Runt of the Renaissance?
Zachary Fine, The New Yorker, April 20, 2026