Abstract:

Being the mother of Jesus Christ, Mary has always been revered as the most important person in the Christian belief only second to Jesus Christ himself. She has always been the subject of many disputations questioning her freedom of the Original Sin, her perpetual virginity or the virgin birth of Jesus. The aim of this article is to scrutinize the concept of “Immaculate Conception”, the misconceptions about this central theological term and the reflections of these disputes on painting. The subject will be discussed in two parts: the first part offers a theological definition of the term “Immaculate Conception” tracing the long way up to the proclamation of the dogma, the second part provides its iconographical analysis as well as a discussion of some other subjects (like the Assumption and the Coronation of Mary) that paved the way to the final composition of the Immaculate Conception.

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