Sassoferrato's 'The Virgin in Prayer'

To stumble across something beautiful or otherwise remarkable, something of whose existence you were previously ignorant, is one of those little pleasures you get in life now and again.

It happened to me when I first saw a film called The Scarlet Empress, read the novel Madame Bovary, and heard that aria from Don Giovanni which was used in Kind Hearts and Coronets.

There was that time an eagle owl swooped low over my head, when an A4 locomotive powered past, less than three yards from me. Lindsay Duncan, when I saw her for the first time in TV's GBH, was a revelation.

Such experiences are similar to falling in love except, of course, they have no down side.

I had never heard of the seventeenth century Italian artist Sassoferrato, when I came across his painting of The Virgin in Prayer in London’s National Gallery. I was pretty impressed and I wasn’t the only one.

It must have been the colour that caught my eye first. Black, white, blue red, bold and bright. The girl’s white headscarf is in stark contrast to the black background. There is something theatrical in that setting, and the ultramarine cloak and red tunic are simple but actually rather stylish. I am always impressed by the technical skill of an artist’s realistic rendering of the folds of clothing and this is no exception. Their softness is quite tactile.

The painting is small, about 2 feet by 2 feet 6 inches. I had just seen Ruben’s Samson and Delilah and The Massacre of the Innocents side by side, and in comparison with their gorgeous detail and scale, this work is so direct and accessible.

But it is the face of the girl that is the true beauty of the work. Her eyes are not quite closed and there is the faint possibility of a smile on her lips. As far as I’m concerned this is not ‘The Virgin’, an object of superstitious idolatry, but a young girl. She may appear to be praying, but her mind seems to be elsewhere. She could as easily be reading a book. The tilt of her head, the shadow of the headdress, the downcast eyes, the faint smile, the youth, the smooth blushing cheeks – there’s nothing religious about this painting.

Some critics might say that the composition leads the eye to the hands joined in prayer, but surely it is the other way around. For this is not religious art. I doubt if there is any such thing. There are paintings whose subject is religion, just as there are paintings where the subject is flowers or racehorses or swimming pools. So, what’s the theme?

It hasn’t got one. All an artist does is use skill, technique and effort to create what nature does without any effort at all.