Death of The Virgin (Caravaggio) - Treatment of The Subject

Treatment of The Subject

This painting was completed at a time when the dogma of the Assumption of Mary was not yet formally enunciated ex cathedra by the pope, but had been gaining ground for some centuries. Pope Pius XII, in his Apostolic constitution, Munificentissimus Deus (1950), which dogmatically defined the Assumption, left open the question of whether or not Mary actually underwent death in connection with her departure, but alludes to the fact of her death at least five times. The New Testament does not mention the matter at all. How she passed from this world is and was therefore not a matter of Catholic dogma, although by the 17th century, the conventional belief among Catholics was that she was assumed alive, as shown in the great majority of contemporary paintings of the subject. By then most believed that she felt no pain or disease, and that she was assumed in healthy if aged body and soul prior to "death". However, during a General Audience on 25 June 1997, Pope John Paul II affirmed that Mary did indeed experience natural death prior to her assumption into Heaven.

Caravaggio's painting is the last major Catholic work of art in which Mary is clearly dead. Caravaggio does not depict an assumption but her death. The figure, like that in nearly all Renaissance and Baroque Assumptions, looks much younger than a woman some 50 or more years old; medieval depictions of the death were often more realistic in this respect.