A few years back, Mrs. D'Day and I visited Lisbon. During our stay we saw many interesting things and I really recommend a visit if you have never been there. One afternoon, we decided to take in the National Museum that covered the entire history of Portugal to present. It was quite a tour, and about half-way through we entered the Madonna and Child floor. Yes, that is right - an entire floor of the state museum devoted to nothing but paintings and sculptures of Mary and Jesus as a baby. I have never seen so many Madonna and Child renditions in one place. There were hundreds of them!
All I could think of was what possessed so many artists to produce basically the same piece over and over again. It had me baffled. I was sure that the Portuguese were all OCD on religion. No other explanation. But finally I found out why. For almost 100 years as Portugal was rising to power in the world, the King decided that all artists would be allowed to produce nothing but images of the Madonna and Child. Whew! There were so many baby Jesuses and Marys pointing fingers to the heavens that I kept looking up thinking maybe they were telling me that the fire sprinkler system was about to go off.
Anyhow, it was the image you see here with this story that made me think about this interesting piece of history I learned during my visit to Portugal. But I don't think this image I have titled 'Madonna and Child' would have sit too well with the authorities in old Portugal. That got me thinking about how many artists met their fate by doing work other than M&D, and that got me to wondering how they executed dissidents back then. I discovered, unlike other European nations back then, the Portuguese did nothing fancy in executions - just plain old hanging.
However, Portugal was the first European country to abolish hanging, so I have my suspicions that maybe they got tired of whacking the non-conforming artists. So, with that thought in mind, my friends, I give you my version of 'Madonna And Child'. It is an ICM of plastic bags, a glass ball, and some stray light that came in through my afternoon window.