Praying the Regina Coeli with Art: This Week's Image

By the Maestro de las Once Mil Vírgenes comes this breathtaking Coronation, created in 1490 (one year before Ignatius Loyola was born!). 

See those flame-like creatures behind the throne? Those are seraphim. ("Seraph" means "fire.")

Image ©Museo Nacional del Prado

From Easter to Pentecost, pray the Regina Coeli (in place of the Angelus) three times a day: morning, noon and evening.

Queen of Heaven, rejoice, Alleluia!
R. For he whom you deserved to bear, Alleluia!
Has risen as he said, Alleluia!
R. Pray for us to God, Alleluia! 

Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, Alleluia!
For the Lord has truly risen, Alleluia!

Let us pray:
O God, who gave joy to the world through the resurrection of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
grant, we beseech thee, that through the intercession of his Mother, the Virgin Mary,
we may obtain the joys of everlasting life.
Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

Annunciation by the Master of the Triptych, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

About the artist (from the Museum site):
This master is recognized as the enameler of a triptych with a central scene of the Annunciation flanked by donor portraits of Louis XII of France (1462–1515) and his queen, Anne de Bretagne (d. 1514), painted between 1499 and 1514. Now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, that triptych is arguably the most beautiful early sixteenth-century Limoges enamel in existence. This plaque is a variant of the London triptych’s central panel.

Workshop of Master of the Triptych of Louis XII
(ca. 1490–ca. 1515)
Date: probably early 16th century
Culture: French, Limoges
Medium: Painted enamel on copper, partly gilt

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

Last week's image was by Rogier van der Weyden. Scholars see this work by Hans Memling (thought to be the left wing of a diptych), as based on a (strikingly similar) design by van der Weyden (Memling was a member of van der Weyden's workshop).
For more info, see the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

 

The only information I have on this splendid depiction of the Annunciation is that it is by Rogier Van der Weyden, and dated 1450. 

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

From a Book of Hours for the Gualengo family, this Annunciation page faced the opening words of the office of Matins of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Angel's "Ave" appears above the scene; beneath, in a frame nesting between the tails of two peacocks, one of the family mottoes: Where God is, there is Peace and Love.

Read more from the Getty Museum of Art.

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

In this image from the National Gallery of Art, the Annunciation forms the center of a four-panel work by Cosmè Tura (the left panel features St Francis of Assisi; the right the young Franciscan bishop St Louis of Toulouse). The four figures are set in a mountainous area at dawn (presumably; the Incarnation was the first "dawning" of the light of redemption on our sin-weary world).

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

Happy New Year!

To help you begin the year praying the Angelus three times a day, here is the first of many Annunciation images for you.

I am sorry I cannot find this 15th century illumination where I originally discovered it: The Walters Art Museum. I can read in the text is "Beautiful Mother" and "We praise you...for seven joys." Presumably this is from a private owner's Book of Hours, which often contained private devotions in addition to the liturgical texts of the Office.

Pondering the Angelus with Art: This Week's Annunciation Scene

15th century was a high point  in the production of woodcut images, especially in Germany. The timing couldn't have been better. As the newborn printing industry developed, woodcut images found a place in the printing forms along with carefully set type, providing illustrations and headings that at first had been done by hand. But stand alone images, hand-colored like this one, were common devotional articles (or destined for a Book of Hours). The Annunciation was a popular theme.


Image from the National Gallery of Art.

Pondering the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

It is not entirely clear that this actually is an Annunciation, although many of the usual features are in the image (Mary at prayer beneath a canopy, the arriving angel and rays of light from Heaven and then from the angel), but other typical features are absent (lily or staff, the words "Hail Mary," a dove or clear representation of the mystery at hand). The words below the image are the opening verse of the Divine Office, "God [come] to [my] assistance," which would be expected in a Book of Hours.


By the Master of Guillaume Lambert (French, active about 1475 - 1485), from the J. Paul Getty Museum Open Content Program.

Pondering the Angelus with Art: A Holy Week Annunciation

Monday of Holy Week. Today's image presages the events we will commemorate in the Liturgy later this week. For not only does Gabriel genuflect before the Virgin as he delivers the divine message; not only does Mary listen calmly and receptively; not only does God the Father look benignly down from his supernatural dwelling: a tiny, naked boy-child is running toward Mary from the heavenly realm, already carrying a cross.

The painting is by Giovanni Santi, a noted 15th century Italian artist in his own right,  but eclipsed in fame by his son, Raphael. The work is kept in Raphael's hometown of Urbino.

The Annunciation, by Giovanni Santi (1490)

Thursday noon will be the last time we traditionally pray the Angelus until Ordinary Time resumes. After the Easter Vigil Mass (Saturday evening), we burst into the "Regina Coeli" (Queen of Heaven, rejoice!), which takes the place of the Angelus throughout Easter.

Pondering the Angelus with Art: An Islamic-influenced Annunciation

This page from a 15th century Gospel book hails from the Lake Van region of Turkey. You can probably recognize the Islamic influence on the artist. The book was not only treasured, but actively used for centuries, as attested by the marginal notations throughout. 

For more about this remarkable depiction, see the Flickr page of the Walters Museum of Art.

Pondering the Angelus with the Angels

Today is the feast of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, the three heavenly messengers who are identified by name in the Bible. While Michael is represented in the Old and New Testaments as a princely defender of God's people, and Raphael (in the Old Testament book of Tobit) as the companion of wayfarers and bringer of remedies, Gabriel's role in Old and New Testament is that of helping humans grasp a message from God. (Gabriel is also considered a divine messenger within Islam.) The three messengers are called "archangels" by Catholic tradition not because of their rank among the angels, but because of the high status of their mission.

The Annunciation story allows the artist to release all of his or her imagination in depicting the status of the message Gabriel was sent to bring. In Simon Bening's depiction, Gabriel, as well as Mary, is under the radiance of the Holy Spirit. The archangel wears a crown and bears a staff or scepter, and his magnificent cope is upheld in the front by a small angel, with a whole team of small angels bearing the train! He approaches Mary from on high, from a raised area at least two steps above the ground floor where her chair, bench and knitting are situated. The setting is both a temple (and the "glory of the Lord filled the Temple" as in Solomon's day) and a home, where Mary has her knitting basket and favorite chair.

Although Mary, intent in her meditation, does not see all the angelic magnificence that is approaching, we at least are primed for a very significant message: "Hail, Full of Grace! The Lord is with Thee!"

Bening Annunciation
Simon Bening, illuminator (Flemish, about 1483 - 1561)
The Annunciation, about 1525 - 1530, Tempera colors, gold paint, and gold leaf on parchment
Leaf: 16.8 x 11.4 cm (6 5/8 x 4 1/2 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. Ludwig IX 19, fol. 13v

Pondering the Angelus

The opening scene of the Angelus prayer is perhaps the Bible scene most frequently depicted in art, even more frequently than the Crucifixion. This stunning array of perspectives may help us to renew the powerful tradition of pausing three times a day to recall those central words of the Creed: "For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man."

The Angelus Project looks forward now to featuring a different Annunciation scene every week, at times with a brief reflection on the work. We start with the Bouts Annunciation, from the J. Paul Getty Museum, as appreciated by Bill Viola: "It speaks to me..."

Dieric Bouts (Netherlandish, about 1415 - 1475)
The Annunciation, about 1450 - 1455
Distemper on linen, Unframed: 90 x 74.5 cm (35 7/16 x 29 3/8 in.)
Framed: 100.3 x 85.6 x 6.7 cm (39 1/2 x 33 11/16 x 2 5/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles