Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

 

This week's image, from the Walters Museum of Art, is part of a 14th century triptych featuring the
Annunciation, Presentation, Crucifixion, Coronation on the side panels surrounding the Enthroned Virgin, holding the Christ Child. A tiny goldfinch (symbol of resurrection) is nestled in the boy's hand. 

In this panel, notice how how the Virgin’s draping garment at the crucifixion above “dips” into the Annunciation frame.  

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

In Ancilla Domini (1896) by Australian artist Rupert Charles Wulsten Bunn, Mary and Gabriel occupy two different "worlds," set apart by both the floor level and the background. Gabriel, in front of a red curtain (evoking the scarlet of the Temple drapes?) is here standing upright, rather than in the more common genuflected posture.  Mary's position is elevated, as if in a raised sanctuary, but she is on her knees to accept the divine invitation. Behind Mary, on the back wall, there is a scene of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise: Mary, the new Eve, if about to "untie the knot" by which our first parents bound us in slavery to sin.

Praying the Angelus with Art: This Week's Image

With the return to Ordinary Time, we resume the weekly image of the Annunciation.

This bas-relief appears on the right side of the Cathedral (Duomo) of Florence. Photo by Sr. Sergia Ballini.