Joan Paylo

Why does Mary look younger than Jesus in Michelangelo's Pietà? The answer is one of the most beautiful in art history... Mary is holding the body of her 33 year old son, but she looks 20. Critics noticed it the moment the sculpture was unveiled in 1499. The mother of a man who has just been crucified would have been in her late forties or early fifties. Michelangelo had carved her as a girl. His own biographer, Ascanio Condivi, was the one who finally asked him why. The answer Michelangelo gave is preserved in Condivi's Life of Michelangelo and has been repeated for centuries: "Do you not know that chaste women stay fresh much more than those who are not chaste? How much more in the case of the Virgin, who had never experienced the least lascivious desire that might change her body?" Most modern critics treat this answer as a half-serious deflection. Michelangelo was famous for his sharp tongue and refused to explain himself to people he considered beneath his intellect. The deeper answer is older, and it lies inside one of the greatest poems ever written. In the final canto of Dante's Paradiso, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux begins his prayer to the Virgin with one of the most extraordinary lines in Italian literature: "Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio." "Virgin mother, daughter of your own son." Michelangelo, who knew Dante by heart, was carving that line into stone. Mary is younger than Jesus because Jesus is older than the universe... because she gave birth to her own creator. But there is another reading, simpler than either of those, and it is the one I find myself thinking of today. Every mother who has held her child has held them at every age at once. The infant is still inside the toddler. The toddler is still inside the teenager. The young man on her lap, even dead, is also the boy she nursed and the baby she first carried home. And maybe that's why Michelangelo did not carve Mary as the years had aged her. He carved her as love had kept her: outside of time, outside of grief, holding her son the way she had always held him... Happy Mother's Day. -- -- -- If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter read by over 50,000 people who love rediscovering the beauty of the past. You can join us here: James-lucas.com/welcome I write about beauty in all its forms. If you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it possible.

Behind every successful man is a strong woman with scary eyes. 😅 Romeo the Central Park coyote with his mate Juliet in the shadows. (Earlier this year) Cont’d #CaptureCoexistence #birdcpp #nature

Happy #worldmigratorybirdday Connecticut warbler briefly perching on a gravestone in the Trinity Church graveyard. This rare bird has stopped over in the city on its way to South America. Safe travels, little one! #birdcpp #birding

Today, I am proud to announce that I will be proposing “Zohran’s law," a law that will keep the rich out of New York’s affordable housing. @ZohranKMamdani : you say freeze the rent. But for who? Rich people like you? Hardworking, working class New Yorkers are being pushed from their neighborhoods. Let’s build affordable housing that helps the people who need it. Under Zohran’s law, landlords can no longer rent vacant rent-controlled units to the wealthy. You are a rich person stealing affordable housing from the poor. And you’re not the only one. It’s past time we address this injustice. Let’s build a new NYC that works for the people who need it.

Great to stand alongside @JerryNadler and the @westsidedemsnyc as we kicked off early voting today. We can have a mayor who has the experience and the vision to get this city back on track — and that’s what our campaign represents.

Sen. @ChrisMurphyCT fires back at Joni Ernst's Medicaid comments: Everybody "knows they're going to die. They would just rather die in old age."