The Blessing of Fleet the Procession, Fremantle
Portugal, Portuguese, Portuguese community, Catholic, Catholicism, procession, ceremony, processions, ceremonies, Christian, Christianity, St Patrick, saint, saints, Saint Patrick, St. Patrick, banners, banner, Capo d'Orlando, fishing, Fremantle, Italy, Madonna, Molfetta, Sicily, statue, WA, Western Australia
<p><span style="font-family: tahoma; font-size: x-small;">A photograph of members of the WA Portuguese Community congregated outside St Patrick's Basilica in Fremantle during the 'Blessing of the Fleet' celebrations in 1979. The Blessing of the Fleet takes place in Fremantle, Western Australia, on the second last Sunday in October. It was first held in 1948 and incorporates a procession in which two Madonna statues are carried from the Basilica to Fishing Boat Harbour. The event relates to one held in the port of Molfetta in Italy, which traditionally dates back to the twelfth century when crusaders returning from Palestine brought paintings of the Madonna to the port. Immigrant fishermen from Molfetta brought the tradition to Fremantle and in 1954 a second Madonna statue was added to the procession by immigrants from the Sicilian port of Capo d'Orlando.</span></p>
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<div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: tahoma; font-size: x-small;">For more on the Blessing of the Fleet see <a href="http://www.boatingwa.com.au/documents/blessing_of_the_fleet.htm" target="_blank">http://www.boatingwa.com.au/documents/blessing_of_the_fleet.htm</a></span></div>
Smith, Stephen
National Library of Australia
1979
National Library of Australia
Hyperlink
Bouguereau’s Virgin and Child
art, artwork, child, Christ Child, crucifixion, devotional art, devotional, gaze, halo, icon, infant Jesus, Madonna, Mary, nostalgia, religious, religion, religious art, SA, South Australia, virgin, Virgin Mary, William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)
This work by William Adolphe Bouguereau was acquired by the Art Gallery of South Australia in 1899 with funds from the Elder Bequest. It depicts the Virgin Mary, clothed in a dark green dress with gold trim and seated against a backdrop of rich gold cloth, holding the infant Jesus on her lap. The child’s arms are outstretched in a crucifixion pose. Although this painting dates from the nineteenth century (1888), it is strongly reminiscent of devotional religious art from the medieval period. The colours and composition are generally similar to those employed by medieval artists, while Mary’s downcast gaze and the use of gold circles to represent halos recreate more specific motifs that were common in medieval representations of the Madonna and Child.
Bourguereau, William Adolphe
Art Gallery of South Australia
1888
Art Gallery of South Australia
Hyperlink;
Oil on Canvas, 176 x 102.8 cm
Virgin of the Offering
Alsace, bronze, Christ, Christianity, Émile-Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929), gothic, infant Jesus, Jesus, Madonna, Mary, model, Niederbruck, religious sculpture, Romanesque, sculpture, SA, South Australia, virgin, virgin and child
<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">This work by French sculptor </span><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Émile-Antoine Bourdelle was gifted to the Art Gallery of South Australia by William Bowmore AO OBE, through the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation in 1994. It is a 2.5m tall bronze sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus aloft. Along with similar sculptures held by the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo and the National Galleries of Scotland (titled La Vierge d’Alsace), this work appears to be a model for Bourdelle’s much larger 6m tall stone carving of the subject, which was completed in 1922 and is situated on a hill in Niederbruck, Alsace, France. Bourdelle studied sculpture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris after training as a wood-carver with his father, and entered Rodin’s studio as a practitioner in 1893. He incorporated both subjects and techniques from Ancient Greek and medieval sculpture into his work. In ‘Virgin and the Offering’, his admiration of gothic and medieval religious art is evident in his choice of subject, while his use of simplified forms is reminiscent of earlier Romanesque sculpture. On the Gothic and Romanesque influences of Bourdelle’s work, see the catalogue description of NG Scotland’s La Vierge d’Alsace at: <a href="http://www.nationalgalleries.org/object/GMA%202" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0000ff;">http://www.nationalgalleries.org/object/GMA 2</span></a>.</span>
Bourdelle, Émile-Antoine
Art Gallery of South Australia
1921
Art Gallery of South Australia
Bronze Sculpture, 250 x 90 x 70cm; Hyperlink
‘Mother and Child’ by G. W. Bot
Art, child, Christ, devotional, exhibition, G. W. Bot, icon, infant Jesus, Madonna, Mary, medieval painters, Mother, Mother and Child, religious art, spirituality, Virgin Mary.
<p>This linocut print, <em>Mother and Child</em> (1985), by artist G. W. Bot depicts a Madonna and child scene in which the frame is occupied almost exclusively by a Virgin Mary figure holding a child. Although held by a private collector, the piece was exhibited in a number of regional Australian art galleries between 2010 and 2013 as part of a touring exhibition of G. W. Bot’s work – <em>The Long Paddock: A 30 Year Survey</em> – developed by the Goulburn Regional Art Gallery and curated by Peter Haynes. Bot’s inspiration for this work derives from the status of the Madonna and Child as a powerful Christian icon, especially in medieval religious art. During an interview conducted for the educational resource kit accompanying the exhibition, G. W Bot acknowledged this medieval influence: ‘I’ve also found inspiration in the medieval icon painters – I’ve always been fascinated by the question of how to encode spirituality in the visual arts’ (see: <a href="http://www.grag.com.au/userfiles/file/GW%20BOT%20Education%20Kit.pdf" target="_self">http://www.grag.com.au/userfiles/file/GW%20BOT%20Education%20Kit.pdf</a>).</p>
<p>For more on this artwork and other works featured in the exhibition, see the Exhibition Catalogue at: <a href="http://www.grag.com.au/userfiles/file/4569%20GW%20BOT%20-%20Catalogue_v12.pdf" target="_self">http://www.grag.com.au/userfiles/file/4569%20GW%20BOT%20-%20Catalogue_v12.pdf</a></p>
G. W. Bot (Chrissy Gishkin)
<em>The Long Paddock: A 30 Year Survey</em> Exhibition (<a href="http://www.grag.com.au/site/exhibition.php?id=3" target="_self">http://www.grag.com.au/site/exhibition.php?id=3</a>)
1985
Goulburn Regional Art Gallery
Linocut on BFK Paper, 62cm x 55.5cm