Madonna of the Dry Tree

Madonna of the Dry Tree or Our Lady of the Barren Tree is a small oil-on-oak panel painting dated c. 1462–1465, attributed to the Early Netherlandish painter Petrus Christus. Its dramatic imagery shows the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child within a tree, surrounded by black, withered branches forming a crown of thorns. The panel is unsigned and undated. It was unattributed until 1919, when the art historian Grete Ring associated its iconography and painterly style with Christus and through a detailed examination of its imagery assigned its current title.

The circumstances of its commission are unknown, although its size indicates it was intended for private devotion. Its stark and haunting imagery is thought to be derived from the Book of Ezekiel, with the Dry Tree (or solitary tree) representing a withered and dead version of the Garden of Eden's Tree of Knowledge, brought back to li…

摘自英文维基百科「Madonna of the Dry Tree」（CC BY-SA 4.0），暂时没有中文条目。