Nov
4
2008
Mother Palin: An Election Special
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See last month’s entry, The Virgin Palin, for a precursor to this posting
IF ONE ACCEPTS the argument from The Virgin Palin that Sarah Palin is to the Republican Party what the Virgin Mary is to Christianity, and if one accepts that in earlier centuries iconography and paintings were a primary vehicle through which a largely illiterate public formed its views on the Virgin Mary, then it follows that one can explore what Sarah Palin means to the Republican Party by looking at images of the Virgin Mary from past centuries. If the transitive logic of such reasoning seems as dubious as its assumptions, it should be remembered that when dealing with matters of religion, or presidential elections for that matter, faith always trumps reason.
In light of the above revelation, I spent a number of hours in London’s National Gallery of Art, focusing my faith and mindlessness upon the numerous paintings of the Virgin Mary. I was not disappointed. The insights into the contemporary American political scene afforded by image after image of a nursing Mother Mary are too many, or at least too profound, to relay. Since not all of us have the opportunity to visit the National Gallery for a direct personal experience, I thought I would include a few of these images of Marian political edification. The acclaimed restoration artist makismakis has generously touched them up to maximize your viewing pleasure. I shall keep my commentary to a minimum to ensure an unmediated, or at least less mediated, encounter between viewer and creator. It is also The Big Day and no one has any time for reading (or writing for that matter) with all this thrill and dread in the air, thrill that the elections are finally going to end, dread that the 2012 campaign will now begin.
