Any study of medieval and renaissance art cannot avoid that most human of images, showing the relationship between a mother and her baby. But given that this is a mother unlike any other - a virgin - and the baby, as God, is also unique, the depiction of The Virgin and Child allows many complex permutations. Artists juggled the extremes of putting them out of our reach - as deity and effectively 'semi-deity' - and bringing them down to earth, to show us a mother and child like any other, and help us to understand God's humility in taking human form as a helpless baby, and Mary's sacrifice, knowing her son was born to die.

This is a subject which is first seen with the earliest Christian art, and which continues to be depicted up to the present day. However, we won't go quite that far. We will trace the origins of the subject, before following its development and growing popularity up to and including the Renaissance, leading us ultimately to the painting by Parmigianino which will be the subject of the following week's talk. 

Our primary source material will be the rich resources of the National Gallery in London - whose earliest painting is, after all, shows the Virgin and Child with a formal splendour. However, we will also see examples from the early Christian church, from Byzantine and Orthodox paintings, and from sculptures as well. Given that the talk will take place on 6 January, the Feast of the Epiphany, Mary and Jesus will also be joined occasionally by the three wise men...