So, I got this idea a while back. I wanted to really get a handle on the whole “Lourdes Madonna” thing. Not just see a picture, you know? I thought, hey, I’ll try to do a little sketch, maybe a small painting. Just a personal project, something to get familiar with the image that so many people connect with.
I started by doing what anyone would do, I guess. I went looking for references. Fired up the computer, dug through some old art books I’ve got lying around. And man, that’s where things got a bit complicated. I was expecting, I don’t know, one main image, a sort of standard look. But nope. It wasn’t like that at all.
There were tons of them. Statues, paintings, little holy cards, you name it. And they weren’t all looking the same, not by a long shot. Some looked really old and stern, others were super gentle and kind of modern. The way she held her hands, the color of her gown or the sash, even the look on her face – it all varied. I found myself getting pretty bogged down, actually. I was spending hours just comparing details, trying to figure out which one was the “real” one, or the “most authentic” one. It was a bit frustrating, felt like I was missing the wood for the trees, if you know what I mean.
Then I Remembered Old Mrs. Gable
Just when I was about to throw in the towel on the whole idea, thinking it was too complicated to pick just one definitive version, I remembered my old neighbor, Mrs. Gable. She wasn’t an artist or anything, just a very down-to-earth lady who’d seen a lot in her life. We used to chat over the fence sometimes.
One day, years ago, I was complaining to her about some project I was stuck on, can’t even remember what it was now. I was all tied up in knots about getting it “perfect.” And she just smiled, real patient, and said something like, “Dearie, sometimes it’s not about finding the one right answer. Sometimes it’s about what you find in it, what it means to you.” She wasn’t talking about art or religion, just life stuff. But it popped into my head.
And it got me thinking about all those different images of the Lourdes Madonna.
- Maybe each artist, each craftsman, wasn’t just trying to make a copy.
- Maybe they were putting a bit of their own feeling, their own community’s understanding into it.
- One might have focused on the healing aspect, another on the prayerful side, or the protective nature.
Suddenly, it wasn’t about me finding the “correct” image to copy for my little project. It felt more like all these variations were part of a bigger story, each one telling a slightly different piece of it. It took the pressure off, big time. I wasn’t an art historian trying to write a thesis; I was just a guy trying to connect with an idea through a sketch.
So, in the end, what I did was I stopped hunting for that single “perfect” depiction. I looked at a bunch of them, got a feel for the common threads, the general sense of peace or contemplation, and then I just started sketching. My little drawing, it doesn’t look exactly like any one famous statue or painting. It’s more of a mix, my own humble take after all that looking and thinking. And you know what? I was much happier with that. It felt more honest for a personal practice. It’s funny how you start out trying to do one thing and end up learning something completely different along the way.
