Breath of Heavan

The Dresden Madonna, by Raphael, considered one of the greatest works of art, prompted the following reflections by Vasily Grossman when he saw it displayed in Moscow 10 years after being confiscated by the Soviets:

"The Madonna's beauty is closely tied to earthly life. It is a democratic, human and humane beauty. It is a beauty that lives in every woman . . . It is a universal beauty. This Madonna is the soul and mirror of all human beings, and everyone who looks at her can see her humanity. She is the image of the maternal soul.

. . .

"The child in the Madonna's arms seems more earthly still. His face is more adult than that of his mother.

"His gaze is sad and serious, focused both ahead and within. It is the kind of gaze that allows one to glimpse one's fate.

"Both faces are calm and sad. Perhaps they can see Golgotha, and the dusty rocky road up the hill, and the hideous short, heavy, rough-hewn cross lying on a shoulder that is now only little and that now feels only the warmth of the maternal breast.

. . .

"I saw her in 1930, in Konotop, at the station. Swarthy from hunger and illness, she walked towards the express train, looked up at me with her wonderful eyes and said with her lips, without any voice, 'Bread. . .'

"I saw her son, already thirty years old. He was wearing wornout soldiers' boots -- so completely worn out that no-one would even take the trouble to remove them from the feet of the corpse -- and a padded jacket with a large hold exposing his milk-white shoulder. He was walking along a path through a bog. A huge cloud of midges was hanging above him, but he was unable to drive them away; he was unable to remove this living, flickering halo because he needed both his hands to steady the damp heavy log on his shoulder. At one moment he raised his bowed head. I saw his fair curly beard, covering the whole of his face. I saw his half-open lips. I saw his eyes -- and I knew them at once. They were the eyes that look out from Raphael's painting."

From "The Sistene Madonna", by Vasily Grossman, The Road, at pp. 172-73, 177-78.

Listen to Amy Grant singing "Breath of Heaven."

Listen to Kenny Rogers and Wynonna Judd sing "Mary Did You Know?"