Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

This icon of the Annunciation can be found in the modern
church of St Clement of Ohrid, Skopje, Macedonia.

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

Annunciation, Filippo Lippi (1450)

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

The Annunciation, Caravaggio (1608)

From Wikipedia: The painting has been considerably damaged and retouched, and what remains of Caravaggio's brushwork is the angel, who bears a resemblance to the figure in John the Baptist at the Fountain. The illusionistic treatment of the angel, floating on his cloud and seeming to protrude outside the picture plane, is more Baroque than is normal for Caravaggio, but the contrast between the energetic pose of the heavenly messenger and the receptive Mary is dramatically and psychologically effective. The loose brushwork is typical of Caravaggio's later period.

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

 

Medieval French crozier  (early 1200’s), enamel on copper.

 

From the Walters Museum of Art: The volute (spiral head) of this crozier resembles a dragon. With a long curving neck covered with blue enamel scales, its grinning head bites at a leafy branch. Inside are the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Gabriel in a scene of the Annunciation. Gabriel's abbreviated greeting "Hail Mary, full of Grace" (Luke 1:28) appears in white enameled letters on each side of the volute. On one side the greeting is misspelled. In Christian symbolism, the dragon represented the Devil who misled mankind, while the Annunciation initiated Christ's birth and human redemption.