Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Annunciation

This is a detail from an Ethiopian diptych of the life of the Virgin Mary, from the Annunciation to her Dormition (Assumption).

Mary, who is seated on a three-legged stool, is busily at work making thread. Gabriel appears at her right side with the message, while the Holy Spirit comes down in a white cloud. On the other side (Mary's upraised arm creating a nice division between two scenes), we find the very next story in the Gospel narrative, with Mary visiting her kinswoman Elizabeth.

As is traditional in Eastern icons, Mary is wearing a red dress, symbolic of her human nature, while she is enfolded in heavenly grace (blue). 

See the full two-page spread from the 17th century in great detail at the website of the National Museum of African Art.

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

 

Another Annunciation by Allan Rohan Crite, this time a linoleum cut from 1947.

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

Continuing with Annunciations for Black History Month, from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, here is the study for Henry Ossawa Tanner's brilliant 1898 Annunciation (featured several years ago on The Angelus Project):

Compare the study to the finished work:

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

For the beginning of Black History Month, an 1937 Annunciation by Boston artist, Allan Crite (†2007). Learn more about Crite and his work at the Smithsonian American Art Museum website.