A high school principal in Jacksonville, Florida has banned his teachers from showing an early Renaissance painting of the Madonna and Child, saying the Virgin Mary ‘doesn’t look happy enough’ to experience the joy of motherhood. Governor Ron DeSantis was quick to express his support for the director, adding that Mary Magdalene “looks like a prostitute.”
Randy McRandall, who has been principal of Jacksonville Central High School since 2021, announced his decision to retire the “Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Mary Magdalene(1495) of the curriculum in a school-wide email earlier this week. Citing the Virgin Mary’s “lack of enthusiasm”, he said the painting is “an attack on family values which constitutes “a partisan attack on the pro-life movement”.
In a series of tweets, Governor DeSantis applauded the decision to ban the artwork. He specifically took issue with the artist’s depiction of Mary Magdalene, who can be seen in the background to the right of St. John the Baptist, admitting that although he did not personally read the Bible, the way the figure looks at the viewer is “inappropriate”. (In 2017, the Vatican published a Press release in hopes of clarifying that the Saint is not, as commonly believed, a sex worker.)
History teacher Eric White intended to teach his students about Italian Renaissance work in a special lecture devoted to male artists from before the 1800s, the only remaining module in the history curriculum at the school art., and wrote about the incident on his Facebook page. In his article, White mocked the principal’s notion of “family values” and his suggestion that the work contains pro-choice messages, pointing out that the Madonna was a married virgin who not only carried her pregnancy to term , but gave birth to Jesus Christ.
“You can’t make this shit up,” White said in response to Hyperallergicrequest for comment. The teacher was removed from his post.
