THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS. 273 



THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 



By MURILLO -(born 1618, died 1682). Original in the Royal 

 Gallery of Madrid. This is the celebrated painting that gained 

 for Murillo his proudest distinction. He was called " The 

 painter of the Conception." It was so superior to everything 

 else of the kind, that it was scarcely remembered that Guido 

 Reni and others had painted the same thing, and very beauti- 

 fully too. 



The doctrine that Mary the Mother of Christ was also like him 

 born without original sin, was for many centuries a point of 

 sharp controversy in the Catholic church. It was virtually set- 

 tled in favor of the immaculate conception, about the year 1620, 

 though not formally promulgated until 1854. From that earlier 

 time the beautiful ideal of this painting was adopted to express 

 the sinless origin and divine nature of the Virgin. She was rep- 

 resented as young not more than fourteen robed in white, 

 with a blue flowing mantle, and beautiful as painting could make 

 her. The model was taken from the vision in Revelations (12-1), 

 "And there appeared a great wonder in the heavens ; a woman 

 clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon 

 her head a crown of twelve stars." 



MARCO POLO. 



Was the son of a Venetian merchant, and born about 1250. 

 He traveled in Asia, chiefly in Chinese Tartary, for 24 years, and 

 on his return was so besieged to tell his wonderful adventures 

 and descriptions of strange peoples, that he resolved to tell them 

 once for all in a book, which has not ceased to be read and to' 

 give interest, even six hundred years after the events. 



CERES AND IASION. 



UNKNOWN. As ancient fable relates, the goddess Ceres had a 

 rustic lover named lasion whom she met in a "thrice-plowed 

 field " in Crete ; and of the twain was born Plutus, the god of 

 wealth. It is a rather clumsy allegory of the production of 

 wealth from rustic toil in the grain fields. 



