Seeing the Unborn: Artificial Intelligence and the Iconographic Visibility of Pregnancy in Early Modern Iberian Religious Art

Abstract

This article examines the visibility and invisibility of pregnancy in early modern Iberian religious art through artificial intelligence. While sacred imagery in Catholic Spain and Portugal between the 14th and 17th centuries includes representations of the pregnant Virgin Mary and scenes related to maternity, such depictions are often symbolically coded and devoid of embodied detail. Using the Astica Vision AI system, a two-phase methodology was applied to a total of fifty-two artworks depicting the Virgin of Expectation, the Visitation, and the Nativity of the Virgin. In the first phase, images were submitted without context to observe whether the AI could independently identify pregnancy or maternal affect. In the second phase, the same images were reanalyzed with iconographic metadata. Findings show that AI frequently fails to detect gestation in sacred images, and even when context is provided, rarely describes bodily signs or relational affect. These findings reflect the visual logic inherent to sacred art, which tends to prioritize theological meaning over biological or emotional realities. The inclusion of a modern secular photograph of pregnancy highlights the contrast: there, AI readily identifies maternal embodiment, emotion, and connection. This contrast reveals how cultural and doctrinal frameworks shape visual codes of legibility. Rather than a neutral observer, the AI becomes a diagnostic tool, amplifying iconographic silences and revealing how sacred art disciplines perception. The article proposes a new methodological role for machine vision in the humanities: not to mimic human reading, but to uncover what remains unseen in visual culture.