Western Culture: "The Sistine Madonna"

"The Sistine Madonna" Rafael (1512-14) [click to enlarge]

This art stuff is awfully complicated for a little country mouse such as myself. Seems everyone has an opinion about how to interpret this painting. At what, for example, is the guy on the left pointing? Why does the Christ Child appear to shrink back-- be afraid? Does he appear that way? What do the Babe and His Mother's expressions mean? And so on.

As part of the painting appears in Christ and the Fine Arts

They say the woman is Rafael's lover, or secret wife!

Christ and the Fine Arts Revised and Enlarged Edition: An Anthology of Pictures, Poetry, Music and Stories Centering in the Life of Christ. Cynthia Pearl Maus. Harper & Row, Publishers, New York and Evanston. 1959. 1938.