Madonna and Child with Saints John and Luke 

Jean Cousin the Younger created "Madonna and Child with Saints John and Luke" in the 16th century using pen and brown ink with brown wash on laid paper. Consider the role of religious imagery during the 1500s, a period marked by the rise of Protestantism and religious conflict across Europe. The sketch depicts the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus, flanked by Saint John and Saint Luke amid a host of cherubic figures. Cousin’s treatment of this scene is striking. It draws on traditional iconographic elements yet infuses them with a tender, almost familial quality. Mary is not just the mother of God, but a mother, her tenderness palpable. The surrounding saints and cherubs seem to celebrate not just divinity, but humanity. It invites reflection on the intimate, human aspects of religious figures, offering a narrative where divinity and humanity are deeply intertwined, and perhaps, where the sacred is found in the everyday.