The Rape of Europa The Rape of Europa the documentary explains the plunder of artwork by Nazis during the time period of World War II. The film features a plethora of artworks. The most captivating masterpiece was Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child or now more commonly known as the Madonna of Bruges. In the Rape of Europa the Madonna of Bruges and Michelangelo were only briefly mentioned in the last forty-one minutes, however, the story of the Madonna and child was greatly exaggerated and very much a main facet in the cinematically ingenious yet historically inaccurate movie “Monuments Men,” which was the Hollywood version of the same events portrayed in The Rape of Europa. In this movie The Madonna and Child was portrayed as having more importance. There was a great deal of romanticism in the plot when Donald Jefferies, played by Hugh Boneville, bravely sacrifices himself in an attempt to save Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child. The real-life counterpart of Donald Jefferies, Major Ronald Edmond Balfour, was recruited to be a Monuments Man in 1944. In actuality …show more content…
After a quarrel with the Pope, Michelangelo neglected to complete the final fourteen after the Madonna and Child and instead sold the sculpture to Jan Van Moeskroen in 1505 who took the masterpiece to Bruges, Belgium. It was the only piece of art that Michelangelo created that left Italy in his lifetime. The almost life-size figure weighs in at about two tons and is meticulously sculpted entirely of marble. A very somber and dismal Mary looks down and away from her child, which is a great change from almost all the famous works portraying the virgin mother and baby Christ; they generally depict Mary more nurturing by having her looking down admiring her little savior or coddling him. This version seems to foreshadow the tragedy to come of the Christ child by Mary’s melancholic