Description

For over a thousand years, Mary Magdalene has been painted as the ideal penitent whore, and seen as a model for the women of the church who had come to Christ. But there is a more human truth, one of a redeemed woman who was an apostle to apostles, the last to remain by Jesus's side during the crucifixion, and the first witness to the resurrection of Jesus. Despite, or perhaps because of, Mary Magdalene's clear importance in the Bible, some early Western church leaders sought to downplay her influence by portraying her as a sinner, a prostitute. There was the humane appeal of a story that emphasized the possibility of forgiveness and redemption. But what most drove the anti-sexual sexualizing of Mary Magdalene was the male need to dominate women. In the Catholic Church, as elsewhere, that need is still being met. "The Pre-Penitent Whore" is visually inspired by the painting "Madonna at Prayer II" by Italian baroque painter Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato.