Vatican plea to uncover Virgin Mary and show her breast-feeding baby Jesus

***Being an ultra-prudish Christian, I would never let a man see my breasts.***

Not even your husband? How about doctor?

I think that when we erase the Puritanical (descendents of the Manicheans) attitudes towards normal human behaviour such as the breastfeeding of infants, our society will be just a tad less sick than it currently is.

***Why should I be the one responsible for the weaker vessel? :)***

Men, as a gender, invented things like Women’s Liberation in order to screw unmarried women with their own consent without consequences to them. Women ought to hold men to a higher standard than they are, absolutely. But men need to hold other men to a higher standard - and that includes not prostituting your teenage daughters or letting them dress and act as if they were prostitutes.

How in the world can you mix up sex and breastfeeding? There is something disturbingly wrong with that.

Most of the frescos in English churches showing Our Lady baring her breasts were, tragically, destroyed by the Protestant vandals during the Reformation.

Here are a few that survived.

Although much of it has been lost and most of the rest is faded, this 14th century Doom (over the chancel arch) has one very unusual feature, namely the Virgin baring her breasts in supplication to her Son (detail, right, below).
This gesture, pagan in origin but found occasionally in Christian art, is extremely rare in the English church, but there is another example of it, probably from around the
same date (but very different in style), in the Doom at North Cove in Suffolk. The gesture might almost have been designed to draw fire from those of an iconoclastic turn of mind, particularly after the Protestant Reformation. In 1570 the Flemish theologian John Molanus had this to say of it:

‘Many painters show Mary and John the Baptist kneeling beside Our lord at the Last Judgment...But we may not think that at that day the Virgin Mary will kneel for us before the Judge, baring her breast to intercede for sinners. Nor may we think that John the Baptist will fall upon his knees to beg mercy for mankind in the way the painters show. Rather, the blessed Virgin and St. John shall sit beside the supreme Judge as assessors. The mercy which is extended now will have no place then. There will only be strict justice at that day.’¹
Hard as it is to warm to Molanus, his pronouncement is a telling comment on the magnitude of the Reformation sea-change.
There are other paintings at Ickleton, including the early and high-quality true fresco Passion Cycle already in these pages.
¹J.Molanus, De Historia SS. Imaginum et Picturarum pro vero earum usu contra abusus, Louvain, 1594, Book iv. cap.24. in A. Caiger-Smith, English Medieval Wall Paintings [Bibliography Page], p. 35.
The Doom, Ickleton, Cambs.

Here is another:

The central portion of the Doom at North Cove, showing Christ in Judgement, with the (bare-breasted) Virgin at the left and John the Baptist to the right, pleading with arms raised in intercession. The spotted mantle, held open to show the wound in Christ’s side, may be intended for ermine, and the swirling decorative whorls around his legs are probably an attempt to suggest clouds. He sits on a rainbow, and below his feet are four angels with blue wings sounding trumpets - that of the angel at the extreme right is clearest.
Below the trumpeting angels, the dead, the coffins (they look like stone sarcophagi) of three of them fairly clear, are about to rise. The probable Donor of all the paintings in the church - in other words the patron who paid the artist to make them - is shown quite alone on the opposite wall, resurrected, sitting up in her tomb, and looking at the Judgement taking place across the chancel.

At the right is an enlarged detail of the bare-breasted Virgin, crowned and with a very large halo, reminding her son of her nurturing by her gesture, much like her slightly later counterpart at Ickleton. The stylistic differences between the two are instructive as evidence of the individual personal approaches, treatments, and indeed skills, of different painters.
Opposite the Virgin and below at the left are enlarged details of John the Baptist (possibly John the Evangelist, but this is less likely), and an angel with Instruments of the Passion - the spear at least is here, and possibly the sponge as well. On the right of the photograph, the decorative detail - a grape and vine stem pattern surrounding all the paintings at North Cove - shows well, but it is seen to best effect in the Passion Cycle, particularly the Harrowing of Hell.
Further below and to the right of John, St. Peter, or perhaps an angel, standing at the left, welcomes souls. Two of them at the extreme right (scroll right) seem to be embracing each other.
Below this, further to the right still, and shown below at the right, St. Michael, sword drawn and threateningly raised, drives the damned away. The detail is very faint now, but it is relatively unusual in English wallpainting to see Michael in this role, the job being done usually by devils.
But there is no discernible Mouth of Hell in this Doom, probably because across the aisle on the North Wall is the graphically-painted Harrowing of Hell, part of the Passion Cycle. In a quite narrow space, one Hell was no doubt thought to be enough.
Doom, North Cove, Suffolk

"At Madrid I had, seen a picture of the Madonna with the child at her breast. It was the altarpiece of a chapel in the Calle St. Jeronimo. The place was filled all day by the devout, who came to adore the Mother of God, whose figure was only interesting by reason of her magnificent breast. The alms given at this chapel were so numerous, that in the hundred and fifty years, since the picture had been placed there, the clergy had been able to purchase numerous lamps and candlesticks of silver, and vessels of silver gilt, and even of gold. The doorway was always blocked by carriages, and a sentinel was placed there to keep order amongst the coachmen; no nobleman would pass by without going in to pray to the Virgin, and to contemplate those ‘beata ubera, quae lactaverunt aeterni patris filium’. But there came a change.

When I returned to Madrid I wanted to pay a visit to the Abbe Pico, and told my coachman to take another way so as to avoid the crush in front of the chapel.

“It is not so frequented now, senor,” said he, “I can easily get by it.”

He went on his way, and I found the entrance to the chapel deserted. As I was getting out of the carriage I asked my coachman what was the reason of the change, and he replied,—

“Oh, senor! men are getting more wicked every day,”

This reason did not satisfy me, and when I had taken my chocolate with the abbe, an intelligent and venerable old man, I asked him why the chapel in question had lost its reputation.

He burst out laughing, and replied,—

“Excuse me, I really cannot tell you. Go and see for yourself; your curiosity will soon be satisfied.”

As soon as I left him I went to the chapel, and the state of the picture told me all. The breast of the Virgin had disappeared under a kerchief which some profane brush had dared to paint over it. The beautiful picture was spoilt; the magic and fascination had disappeared. Even the teat had been painted out; the Child held on to nothing, and the head of the Virgin no longer appeared natural.

This disaster had taken place at the end of the Carnival of 1768. The old chaplain died, and the Vandal who succeeded him pronounced the painting to be a scandalous one, and robbed it of all its charm.

He may have been in the right as a fool, but as a Christian and a Spaniard he was certainly in the wrong, and he was probably soon convinced of the mistake he had made by the diminution in the offerings of the faithful.

My interest in the study of human nature made me call on this priest, whom I expected to find a stupid old man.

I went one morning, but instead of being old, the priest was an active, clever-looking man of thirty, who immediately offered me chocolate with the best grace imaginable. I refused, as was my duty as a stranger, and indeed the Spaniards offer visitors chocolate so frequently at all hours, that if one accepted it all one would be choked.

I lost no time in exordiums, but came to the point at once, by saying that as a lover of paintings I had been grieved at finding the magnificent Madonna spoilt.

“Very likely,” he replied, “but it was exactly the physical beauty of the picture that rendered it in my eyes unfit to represent one whose aspect should purify and purge the senses, instead of exciting them. Let all the pictures in the world be destroyed, if they be found to have caused the commission of one mortal sin.”

“Who allowed you to commit this mutilation? The Venetian State Inquisitors, even M. Barberigo, though he is a devout man, would have put you under the Leads for such a deed. The love of Paradise should not be allowed to interfere with the fine arts, and I am sure that St. Luke himself (who was a painter, as you know) would condemn you if he could come to life again.”

“Sir, I needed no one’s leave or license. I have to say mass at that altar every day, and I am not ashamed to tell you that I was unable to consecrate. You are a man and a Christian, you can excuse my weakness. That voluptuous picture drew away my thoughts from holy things.”

“Who obliged you to look at it?”

“I did not look at it; the devil, the enemy of God, made me see it in spite of myself.”

“Then you should have mutilated yourself like Origen. Your generative organs, believe me, are not so valuable as the picture you have ruined.”

“Sir, you insult me.”

“Not at all, I have no intention of doing so.”

That young priest shewed me the door with such brusqueness that I felt sure he would inform against me to the Inquisition. I knew he would have no difficulty in finding out my name, so I resolved to be beforehand with him.

Both my fear and my resolve were inspired by an incident which I shall mention as an episode. ..."

- Casanova

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.