This article: Van der Weyden's depiction of the Magdalen is based on Mary of Bethany, identified by the time of Pope Gregory I as the repentant prostitute of Luke 7:36–50. She then became associated with weeping and reading: Christ's mercy causes the eyes of the sinner to be contrite or tearful. Early Renaissance artists often conveyed this idea by portraying contemplative eyes, associating tears with words, and in turn weeping with reading. Examples can be seen in 16th-century works by Tintoretto and Titian which show the Magdalen reading, often with her eyes averted towards her book (and presumably away from a male gaze), or looking up to the heavens or, sometimes, glancing coyly towards the viewer. Writing in "The Crying Face", Mosche Barasch explains that in van der Weyden's time the gesture of averting or concealing the eyes became a "pictorial formula for crying".
By the medieval period, reading became synonymous with devotion, which involved withdrawal from public view. Van der Weyden's placement of the Magdalen in an interior scene reflects the increasing literacy of domestic or laywomen in the mid-15th century. The increased production of devotional texts showed that noble women of the period routinely read texts such as a psalter or book of hours in the privacy of their homes. Whether the Magdalen herself was a reader, by the 17th century she was firmly established as such in the visual arts. Because the Magdalen was present at Christ's death and subsequent resurrection, she was seen as the bearer of news—a witness—and hence directly associated with the text.The Magdalen imagery further draws on the idea of Christ as the word, represented by a book, with the Magdalen as the reader learning of her own life story in a moment of reflection and repentance.  Her devotion to reading reflects her traditional status as the piously repentant harlot, as well as a prophetess or seer.  According to legend, the Magdalen lived the last 30 years of her life as a hermit in Sainte-Baume and is often shown with a book, reading or... contains an answer for the question: What is the first name of the Magdalen who became associated with weeping and reading?, what is it ?


Mary