Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

Today is the feast of St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, though because it is a Sunday only the Jesuits will be celebrating the feast day. (Plus me. I am a big fan of St Ignatius.) If you know any Jesuits, tell them that you have seen the Annunciation from the chapel in their General Curia (pronounced Coor-ee-ah) in Rome! (That's their world headquarters, just a block away from the arms of Bernini's colonnade surrounding St Peter's Square at the Vatican.) 

This is, I think you can tell, a work by their brother Jesuit, Marko Rupnik. As usual, Mary holds close to her womb the red thread that represents her womanly work: both "weaving the Temple veil" and forming, within her womb, the fleshly tissues of the Dwelling of God among the human race. 

I am putting the detail first, and then the wide shot that shows you the context. 

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

In this stunning image, almost 100 years old (the artist's signature and date, 1923 is in the upper right corner), Jacek Malczewski (1854-1929), depicts Mary as a contemporary girl. The painting can be seen in the National Museum in Warsaw, one of the oldest museums in Poland. 

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

 

This lovely Annunciation in oil, crayon and gold was painted by Viggo Pedersen of Denmark. Pedersen was better known as a landscape painter, though there are attestations that he did "some" religious art in the 1890's. That this Annunciation is his work is testified to by his son in an inscription on the reverse of the painting.

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

 I cropped the page on which this image is featured in order to reduce the file size and allow you to see the image itself more easily. The original, a woodcut in a classical style, is from the Statens Museum of Kunst, the National Gallery of Denmark. The image is by Melchio Lorck, whose initials appear in Mary's prie-dieu.

See the original (in its full setting) on the museum site.

Annunciation woodcut by Melchio Lorck (c 1574)
Statens Museum of Kunst

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

 

Annunciation, Kazimierz Sichulski (1934)