Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

From the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, Florentine Niccolò di Pietro Gerini offers this week's Annunciation image. The almost full-sized figure floating in the heavens may look like Jesus, but it's really God the Father (Jesus is his perfect image, after all). Look at the halo (Jesus typically has a cross etched into his halo) and at his hand, sending forth the Holy Spirit.

Photo credit: Yale University Art Gallery

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

One more from il Guercino and then we'll move on! This unique Annunciation is from a rather unique collection:  The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, FL. It was a bequest of John Ringling, of, yes, the Ringling Brothers, to the city of Sarasota. An explanation of the piece by one of the former museum docents can also be found online.

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

Going with a theme here, another Annunciation by il Guercino (the Squinter); this one from the Royal Collection Trust. The museum notes say that the study was originally "Prometheus bringing life to a clay statue with a burning torch," which il Guercino erased and replaced with this lovely image.

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

Following up on last week's Guercino, here is another stupendous Annunciation by the same northern Italian artist. Note that it has the same basic features as last week's image: Mary, praying peacefully beneath a super-active Heavenly realm. In this scene, Gabriel is hovering from a different direction than in last week's image. Ken Clark offers a reflection on the scene in the journal of The Augustine Institute.