Composition
In the painting, the Madonna, holding the Christ Child and flanked by Saint Sixtus and Saint Barbara, stands on clouds before dozens of obscured cherubs, while two distinctive winged cherubs rest on their elbows beneath her. The American travel guide Rick Steves suggests that the unusual worried expression on Mary's face reflects her original placement beside a painting of the Crucifixion.
Read more about this topic: Sistine Madonna
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“The composition of a tragedy requires testicles.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)
“Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.”
—Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890)
“I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition was poured a little alloy of bell-metal. Often, in the repose of my mid-day, there reaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum from without. It is the noise of my contemporaries.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)