Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

 

This very contemporary Annunciation by John Collier was created for Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral in Charleston, WV. Note that Mary is standing within the branches of a fig tree, a clear allusion to the Garden of Eden and the fig leaves with which Adam and Eve attempted to clothe themselves when they lost the garment of sanctifying grace. Mary, instead, created (as our first parents were) in the state of grace, remained faithful to that initial clothing, and so was addressed by Gabriel as "full of grace."

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

 

By Joan de Borgoya ("the Master of St Felix), son of an Alsatian goldsmith, was born in Strassburg, Austria in 1465 and died in Barcelona in 1525, shortly after this painting was completed. That may explain why the painting is found in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya.

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

This year's Annunciations have been predominantly medieval, but here is a Baroque work for a change, by Spanish artist Francisco de Solis of Madrid. As a painter, he was much in demand for commissions by religious orders. This Annunciation was also created for a religious community, but not as a typical commission: It was meant for the cloister where his own daughter, Petronilla, made her vows as a Carmelite. And that makes it especially fitting to feature on the feast day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel!

Francisco de Solis, Annunciation 1664 (1675?) for Discalced Carmelites of Boadilla del Monte
Now in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

 

All I have been able to find out about this image is that it is from a 15th century manuscript of the Golden Legend, and is from a collection in France.

Starting in the mid-13th century, the Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine became a runaway best-seller. Filled with the lives and, yes, legends of the saints, it captured the imaginations of many (and is in part credited with the conversion of St. Ignatius of Loyola, being one of the two books in the Loyola household library). Naturally, the best copies (like one from which this detail is taken) were filled with illuminated pages.

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

This week we have an Annunciation by Paolo Caliari (better known as "il Veronese," or, "the man from Verona"). I've featured Veronese's Annunciations before. 

This Annunciation, like many featured this year, is from the website of the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, but it is actually not part of their collection. Instead, it is on a long-term loan from a collection of Renaissance works.

Annunciation by Veronese, c 1580-1582
From the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection