The Virgin and Child 

Editor: We're looking at "The Virgin and Child," an oil painting by Dirk Bouts. There’s something so serene and otherworldly about it, yet also a little unsettling, I think especially regarding the proportions. How do you interpret this work? Curator: Formally, it's a fascinating study in contrasting textures and implied geometry. Observe the smoothness of the Virgin's skin juxtaposed against the textured rendering of the fabric. Bouts manipulates light to define shapes and to draw the viewer's eye upward. Editor: I see that. So, it's almost like a pyramid shape pulling us towards her face, made by the red cloak and the child’s position. Curator: Precisely. Note, too, the use of aerial perspective in the landscape behind the figures, creating a sense of depth and atmospheric perspective. Do you notice how the background almost seems detached from the foreground? Editor: Yes! The figures seem…closer, somehow. What is that about? Curator: Consider that Bouts, with his distinctive painting style, is using flatness in the figure of the Virgin against the pictorial depth of the landscape. Are they truly inhabiting the same world within this painting? I’d argue no. Editor: It feels symbolic somehow. Are we meant to see them as not of this world? Curator: It invites such speculation. Bouts has created a devotional object, certainly, but through considered formal choices of rendering and pictorial arrangement he opens the work to further contemplation on the image itself, beyond what it presents. Editor: I never would have noticed how Bouts played with the sense of space between the Virgin and the world behind her if you hadn’t pointed it out. Thanks! Curator: And you, for seeing those interesting proportions and the other aspects of representation this work uniquely uses to convey both religious subject and new painterly vision.