Madonna della Pieta

In world art, no theme is more prevalent or more important than that of the mother.  Mother Earth, Mother Goddess, and Mother Creator, she represents creation, fertility, and compassion.   There are masculine fertility representations, but they lack the sense of nurturing that the mother symbols do, which makes them less common and less popular.

Western Art tends to compress all of its thoughts and feelings about Mothers into the singular character of Mary, The Mother of God.  In parts of Europe, every church and nearly every home has images of Madonna and Child--Mary, the mother of God, holding and codling the infant Jesus, innocent and unaware of the life he would lead.

The second image we have of Mary in Western Art is La Pietà, "the compassion."  The dolorous image of Mary the Mother of God, holding his lifeless body, wearing for her lost son, before laying him to rest.  It's one of the most powerful images in all of Christendom.  Mary, who the angels told would bear the Son of God, holds his broken and dead body in her arms, wondering what went wrong.  People talk about the perfection of Michelangelo's statue of David.  For me, Madonna della Pietà is not only the greatest work of  Michaelangelo but possibly the greatest statue of all.  

In Lewis's The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Lucy and Susan represent Mary, the Mother of God, and Mary Magdelene when they come upon the dead body of Aslan, still tied to the altar table.  Weeping and in pain, they beseech the mice to help free the dead body of Aslan from the ropes that bound him.  Susan cradles the dead king's head in her lap.  The cruelty of life has taken their most precious from them.

No mother should ever endure the loss of her son, but how common is it that accident, disease, addiction, depression, and most of all, war takes the son from the mother.   No other cause has separated more mothers from more sons than war from the beginning of time.  On Mother's Day, remember your mother, but remember the mothers who lost their progeny and issue.  Nothing can ever fill that void.