In the first of these two articles considering paintings of Mary Magdalene, I showed a small selection of those depicting her in events that occurred during times covered by the Gospels, up to the Noli me tangere of the Resurrection. Tradition following Pope Gregory I’s conflation of her with Mary of Bethany, and her assumed role of a reformed prostitute, resulted in many paintings of her penitent, presumably long after the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven.
Titian painted a whole series of related portraits of the Penitent Magdalene. This is one of the earlier versions, commissioned for Vittoria Colonna through Federico II Gonzaga, the Duke of Mantua and son of Isabella d’Este, and painted in 1531. It’s innovative and to the modern eye quite erotic, at a time when paintings of Mary Magdalene were without exception prim and proper. Her hair and its use to partly cover her body is eye-catching.
This composite Mary was a beautiful but sinful young woman who revelled in sexual pleasure. She became a follower of Christ on her repentance, and after his crucifixion became a penitent widow. Even more unbelievable extensions to her story take her to Provence, in the south of France, where she baptised pagans in Marseilles and spent thirty years as a hermit in a cave near Sainte-Baume. She was thus the model of a sinful woman who was redeemed through faith in Christ. Her sin was common to all women, that of weakness of the flesh, and she became a powerful figure in the minds of many women in the Renaissance and later.
Titian’s later version of the Penitent Magdalene from about 1565 shows her eyelids swollen and red with crying, as she looks up to heaven.
A century later, Mary became the obsession of Georges de La Tour, who used a tightly restricted palette in his many chiaroscuro portraits of her.
His Penitent Mary Magdalene from 1628-45 is one of the simpler compositions, with a skull and the flame of a single candle.
The Magdalene with the Smoking Flame, which probably dates from around 1630, adds a wooden crucifix, books, and a small rope scourge.
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s Penitent Mary Magdalene is one of his earliest surviving paintings, completed in 1640 when he was about twenty-two. In this first of his many paintings of her, she is shown as a ‘scarlet woman’ in penitence, accompanied by a large Bible, crucifix, skull, and – more unusually – with a jar of myrrh.
Elisabetta Sirani’s Penitent Magdalene is a powerful painting in which Mary’s eyes are closed in spite of the vision of Christ crucified on the left.
For some, this penitence was transformed into a religious ecstasy.
In Artemisia Gentileschi’s portrait of Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy from 1613-20, her eyes are closed and her head thrown back as she directs her unseeing gaze to heaven.
There are even some paintings of her legendary travel to the south of France.
Jules LeFebvre made a successful career from painting nude women for all sorts of acceptable excuses. He even found a religious motif that could feature a nude, Mary Magdalene In The Cave, which he painted in 1876. This refers to a French legend claiming that Mary Magdalene, her brother Lazarus and some companions fled across the Mediterranean to land at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer near Arles. From there, Mary went to live in isolation in a cave on a hill near Marseille, now known as La Saint-Baume, and the setting for this painting. Her left arm covers much of her face, although she looks straight at the viewer with her eyes.
Finally, the most unusual appearance of Mary Magdalene must be that in Albert Edelfelt’s painting.
Christ and Mary Magdalene, a Finnish Legend from 1890 dresses her in contemporary clothing, and transports the two to the lakes and forests of Finland, where the first pale leaves of Spring are on the trees.
Pope Gregory I has a lot to answer for.