Banksy is back: on his social profile he has published a new work depicting a Madonna with child, a sweet and melancholy image but at the same time strong thanks to the breast pierced by a bullet. What is its symbolic meaning and why did you reveal the mural a few days before Christmas?
Just a few days before Christmas 2024 arrives Banksy he’s back in action and, as you might imagine, his timing was anything but coincidental. In the last few hours on his official social account he published a new work depicting a Madonna with Childa sweet and melancholic image but made heartbreaking and powerful by a rusty hole that appears to be a gunshot. At the moment it is not yet known where the mural is located, but what is certain is that the subjects seem to be inspired by a famous work of sacred art of the same name. What is the symbolic meaning of the new stencil drawing by the famous street artist and why did he create it just before the start of the end-of-year holidays? Here are all the details of the mural destined to spark discussion.
The symbolic meaning of Banksy’s Madonna and Child
The Madonna and Child is the new mural that appeared on Banksy’s Instagram profile. It depicts the Mother of God, the ultimate symbol of life, while she is busy breastfeeding her child, only to be unable to do so because a bullet hit her breast. As usual, the artist exploited a pre-existing rusty hole on the public wall and transformed it into a symbol of violation, a denunciation against the violence of the contemporary world. Left without milk to feed the child, the Madonna becomes the heartbreaking image of a motherhood endangered by the brutality of war.
Because Banksy showed off the new mural before Christmas
Banksy’s work appears to be a clear reference to the war in Gaza, where mothers and children, as well as the Madonna and Jesus, are brutally deprived of nourishment, hope and life. The bullet to the breast with the bloody wound it generates would also represent violence against women, a problem that is becoming more and more worrying day after day but which is still too often faced with cynicism and indifference. The choice to show the work during the Advent period is not accidental: the magic of Christmas and the rhetoric of peace are in total contrast with the contemporary world in which hatred and war dominate. Once again, therefore, Banksy wants to lead spectators to reflect on their own faults: what is the future that each of us is creating for posterity?
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