Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

 The Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya has this amazing 12th century fresco, transferred from the actual walls of a church nave (body) to canvas. Above one of the arches we see the Annunciation. It could be that the upper layer of images are from the infancy narratives, while the arches may feature the passion. (That is just a conjecture on my part, since the full image available to me shows a Nativity to the left of the Annunciation.)

At first I had my doubts about this being an Annunciation, and then I saw that Mary what was working on. Spinning thread into yarn is a clear sign of Our Lady of the Annunciation!

Annunciation from frescoes of the parish church of Sant Pere de Sorpe (Alt Àneu, Pallars Sobirà)

Some of the nave frescoes of the parish church of Sant Pere de Sorpe (Alt Àneu, Pallars Sobirà)
Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

Annunciation by Alonso Gallego (1457-1548). It would be interesting to see this altarpiece in its original setting ( the parish church of San Hipólito, in the town of Támara, Palencia, Spain), to understand why the torsos of Mary and Gabriel are so elongated and Gabriel's face, in particular, seems foreshortened. 

Annunciation, 1530-1537
Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

From the early 1300's comes this carved section of a Spanish Gothic altarpiece, the work of noted sculptor Jaume Cascalls.

Annunciation in alabaster by Jaume Cascalls (altarpiece fragment)
Permanent loan from the Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona
to the Museu Provincial d'Antiguitats, 1879
Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

Another Annunciation by Veronese this week! Here again we see the master's architectural setting telling part of the story. I especially like the way the light of the Holy Spirit is treated!

Read more about the origins of this image and the recent restoration at savevenice.org

Annunciation, Veronese (1578)
Venice, Galleria dell'Accademia

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

The Episcopal Church of St. Paul's Within the Walls in Rome features this 1888 Annunciation in mosaic, designed by Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones. 

Annunciation
St Paul's Within the Walls, Rome

Greater detail, and an explanation from the church website:

On the face of the first arch, in front of the apse, is a representation of the Annunciation based on an early legend. We see Mary in the desert outside the town walls, drawing water from a spring. As she turns homeward, the angel greets her. Burne-Jones has chosen to represent this as happening against the reddening evening sky, the time of the Angelus. In the lower left-hand corner, we see a pelican, in medieval times a symbol of Christ, for according to popular belief it customarily tore open its breast with its beak to feed its hungry young. Under this scene is written the greeting of Gabriel: “Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee” (Luke 1:28) and Mary’s answer “Behold the handmaiden of the Lord; be it unto me according to Thy word.” (Luke 1:38)

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

We're moving back to Spain this week for a late 14th (or maybe cusp of the 15th) century predella (bottom row of an altarpiece. The Annunciation and Crucifixion are the central panels, flanked on the left by St. John the Baptist and on the right by St. Catherine of Alexandria. Francesc Comes was a significant Majorcan artist and painter to the King of Aragon. (One of Comes' works in the Isabella Stewart Gardiner Museum is thought to feature a portrait of the king.)

Annunciation detail
Francesc Comes predella (Francesc Cambó Bequest, 1949)

Here is the predella in full:

Predella, Francesc Comes
Francesc Cambó Bequest, 1949