MADISON 



3585 



MADONNA AND HER BABE 



upon in the parks, which cover 500 acres, and 

 in the miles of remarkable drives about the 

 lakes. 



Buildings and Institutions. The city's most 

 attractive ornament is the Capitol, which stands 

 on a hill in the center of a public park, and 

 which for architectural beauty is not surpassed 

 in any other capital city of the United States. 

 Among other prominent buildings are those of 

 the University of Wisconsin, established in 1848 

 and open to both sexes. This great institution 

 occupies a beautiful site on a tract of land 600 

 acres in extent, which stretches for one mile 

 along the picturesque shores of Lake Mendota. 

 The State Historical Society is housed in an 

 Ionic structure of Indiana limestone, the con- 

 struction of which cost $700,000. It contains a 

 valuable collection of historical mementos and 

 the famous reference library of 245,000 volumes, 

 considered one of the best historical libraries 

 in the United States. The libraries of the Wis- 

 consin Academy of Sciences, Arts^ and Letters 

 and of the State University are also in this 

 building. In addition to these, the city has the 

 State Law and Carnegie libraries, four schools 

 of music, business schools and night schools. 

 The Federal building was erected in 1871. A 

 United States weather bureau station and a 

 forest-products laboratory are located here. In 

 the immediate vicinity are the Sacred Heart 

 Convent, for girls, the State Insane Asylum, a 

 Battle Creek sanitarium and the State Fish 

 Hatchery. See WISCONSIN, UNIVERSITY OF. 



Commerce and Industry. Though Madison is 

 widely known as a seat of learning and as a 

 summer resort, its varied industries are also 

 important. The 120 manufacturing houses sup- 

 ply local and foreign markets, and the annual 

 output is valued at about $10,000,000. Among 

 these products are agricultural implements, ma- 

 chine tools, gas and oil engines, lubricating de- 

 vices, electric supplies and building materials. 

 Owing to its geographical location between Chi- 

 cago and the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and 

 Saint Paul, and to the exceptional shipping fa- 

 cilities offered, by nine branches of the three 

 trunk lines serving the city, Madison has be- 

 come a distributing center of importance. It 

 is a wholesale lumber point and occupies the 

 center of the tobacco-growing region of the 

 state. The surrounding territory also produces 

 lead, zinc, iron ore, grain, silica, sand and flax. 



History. In 1836 this site was chosen for the 



state capital, and in 1837 the first house was 



built and occupied by the workmen engaged in 



the construction of the Capitol. Two years 



225 



later the building was completed, and Madison 

 has since been the seat of government for the 

 state. It was incorporated as a city in 1846, 

 and named for James Madison, fourth Presi- 

 dent of the United States. A.H.M. 



MADON'NA AND HER BABE, the most 

 revered subject in the world of religious art as 

 well as in the world of reality. In the Ma- 

 donna of art is found the glorification of the 

 motherhood and mother love of the race. As 

 nothing else makes so universal an appeal as 

 a mother and child, century after century art- 

 ists have poured out their souls in this beloved 

 theme. Madonna paintings are so numerous 

 that it is impossible to estimate their number.. 

 Every gallery of any consequence has its study 

 of Mary and her Babe, representative of some 

 great school of art. However, the greatest Ma- 

 donna paintings are of the Renaissance, that 

 marvelous period of the awakening of art, re- 

 ligion and learning in which the medieval age 

 merges into the modern. The Madonnas of 

 to-day are comparatively few in number, for 

 the men and women of the twentieth century 

 are more concerned with men than with saints; 

 their interest centers not upon the hereafter, 

 but the present. And so their art concerns it- 

 self not with painting virgin mothers, saints and 

 angels, but with the things that lie close to 

 material existence. 



Students of Madonna art generally divide the 

 paintings into five classes, according to the gen- 

 eral styles of treatment: 



(1) The Portrait Madonna, in which the figures 

 are in half length against an indefinite back- 

 ground. In this division are grouped the first Ma- 

 donna paintings. They are of Byzantine or Greek 

 origin, and an example is to be found in every 

 old church in Italy. The Virgin is a half-length 

 figure against a background of solid gold leaf, or 

 studded with cherubs. She is pictured in a robe 

 of blue, starred or marked with gold and usually 

 draped over her head. To see one is to know all. 



( 2 ) The Madonna Enthroned, which constitutes 

 the largest class, represents the Madonna sitting 

 on some sort of throne or dais. Every school of 

 Italian art is also included in this division, and 

 an astonishing variety of form is revealed. To 

 this group belong Cimabue's Madonna, painted in 

 1270, and hanging in the Church of Santa Maria 

 Novella, at Florence ; Bellini's Madonna of San 

 Zaccaria at the Venice Academy ; Andrea del Sar- 

 to's Madonna of the Harpies, in the Uffizi Gallery, 

 Florence; Perugino's Madonna and Saints, in the 

 Vatican Gallery ; Paul Veronese's Madonna and 

 Saints, in the Venice Gallery, and Madonna and 

 Child by Quinten Massys, in the Berlin Gallery. 



(3) The Madonna in the Sky, or the Madonna 

 in Gloria, where the figures are set in the heavens, 

 represented by a glory of light, by clouds, or a 

 company of cherubs, or by simple elevation abo' )0 



