Ancient Painting Of The 17th Century

"Penitent Magdalene"
circle of JACOB JORDAENS

The image of the Magdalene is suspended between lust and repentance, the iconographic symbols are all represented in the painting; the skull that represents the inexorable passage of time, the book that represents knowledge and finally the ampoule.
The jewels and luxurious robes indicate that Mary of Magdala
he resists her change despite her angel physically inducing her to do it.
The beauty of this representation is given by the fighting force with which Mary opposes a conversion that will lead her to be the most discussed and painted woman in recent centuries.
We were struck by the strength and pride that this painting reveals and above all by the rather unpublished depiction of a woman we know through the most famous pictorial representations as modest and repentant.
And it is precisely the proud and proud resistance that struck us "The battle before surrender, pride before awareness, sin before repentance"
The proud representation given by the painter in a sometimes poetic form address the viewer with a force so powerful as to leave one surprised, astonished and somehow leads us to reflect on the resistance to repentance, which should, instead, be a bringer of relief. spiritual.

OIL ON CANVAS Dimension: 128 X 98 cm - Framed 148 X 118 cm

La Maddalena is a character who has always been very present in painting and sculpture, one of the most loved sacred images of Italian and European art, a saint with many often contrasting faces, whose figurative fortune testifies to the great influence exercised since remote times on collective imagination. The works of her that portray her are many and date back to late antiquity, configuring themselves in an iconographic richness characterized by very different representative contexts. The figurative development of this character, in fact, did not have a regular and uniform course, but was articulated along a complex and heterogeneous path.
But much more often, the iconography of the Magdalene presents her to us as the penitent with long hair, portrayed in prayer, with a skull next to her (often also a book or a mirror). This is due to the fact that historically Mary of Magdala has identified herself with the anonymous "sinner", the prostitute who throws herself at Christ's feet, washes them with her tears, dries them with her hair and then sprinkles them with scented ointment.