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What did the people of his time who looked at this Annunciation by Simone di Martini see when they looked at it? You can get a close look at central image using the image viewer at the excellent Artchive Site.
The Annunciation is important in the Catholic Church, celebrated on an appropriate Sunday near March 25. It is one of the Joyful Mysteries, a subject of meditation in recitation of the Rosary. The biblical text is Luke 1:26-38; I put a Catholic translation, the Douay-Rheims Bible at the end of this diary.
The painting is simple: an Angel, bearing an olive branch and wearing olive leaves in his hair, kneels before Mary, his wings arched. Mary sits on a chair, wearing a blue robe and holding a book. Between them is a lily, a symbol of purity. Above them are tiny angels; on either side in a panel are two saints, Margaret and Asano. I imagine St. Asano was associated with the parish for which this work was created, or perhaps the patron who commissioned the work.
Luke says the first words of the Angel are “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee”, in Latin, that would be Ave, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Those words are in this painting: they are the raised line that moves from the mouth of the Angel towards the Virgin. Mary’s response is natural, she reaches her hand to her throat, she twists away, as if to protect herself. We shouldn’t read a lot into her expression, because this is a stylized form of painting, but it clearly expresses some emotion, maybe distrust or fear. To me the emotion is dismay. It is as if she recognizes the implication of the message, and is upset and slightly miserable. But maybe I am reading to much into the painting because that’s how I would feel.
Paintings like this one were used to teach the Bible and Catholic doctrine to the illiterate masses. I don’t have a clue what the average person of 1333 saw when they looked at this work. I have little in common with those people. In exactly the same way, I don’t see much when I look at Chinese calligraphy like this at the Freer Gallery in DC, which dates from roughly the same period as the Martini. I have no connection whatever to the mindset that created this, no way to gauge its beauty or ordinariness, no context in which to put it. It would take long study just to get an intellectual grip on the work, and I’m sure I could never relate to it emotionally in the same way people of that culture would. Here’s a story that gives some hint of the similarities and differences between us and the people of a small town in France.
Martini comes from the Sienese school. Here is a late work from that school by Sano di Pietro, located at the Duomo of Montepulciano, a hill town in Tuscany. The movie The English Patient was filmed there, and the church appears in the scene where Kip takes Hana on a motorcycle ride. The robe of the Madonna, and the shape of the face is quite similar to the Martini. The Baby Jesus has the sinuous shape of the Madonna. Neither has much expression. But how can you resist the detail of the bird in the hand of the Baby? Or his bright red hair? Were all the local folk redhead? Was the bird the symbol of the local Lord? Did the artist have a boy child with red hair? Did his girl friend keep a bird in a cage?
The Baby Jesus is looking at something other than the artist, and the Madonna looks with him. It reminds me of my own children, who were always looking around at the world and not at the thing I thought was important. Again, who knows what the people saw then?
This painting is dated 1450, and the only significant change in the form from the Martini is that the background isn’t gold. At the same time, dramatic changes in art and life were underway in Italy with the advent of the Renaissance. For a taste of the change, compare the Sano di Pietro to this Expulsion from Masaccio, dated to 1424-8. We don’t feel that separated from this kind of art, so maybe our differences aren’t as great as all that.
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26 And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, 27 To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. 29 Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. 30 And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God.
31 Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. 32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. 33 And of his kingdom there shall be no end. 34 And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man? 35 And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
36 And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: 37 Because no word shall be impossible with God. 38 And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.
70 Comments
Amazing how much the work of this period was religious, if one were to put aside the source of funding. Also seems so anachronistic that art was so tightly entwined with organized religion at the time, in comparison to earlier art.
In some ways the flatness of perspective seems integral to the tight relationship between religion and art; it is not until the soon-to-follow Renaissance that we see more depth in art, as if questioning the nature of existence also freed artists’ perspective.
A bit confused by your comment since the value of any art piece is in the effect it has on yourself – and is not an absolute value for all. So “questioning existence” reflects your own interpretation of what the Renaissance was all about – and of course is part of what gives value in your mind to later works.
There is a bit of writing that would lead some to see a “questioning of existence/asking why/how” in writing pre and post Jesus – and of course, pre-Renaissance. Indeed questioning of existence is the one question that runs through human history.
As to the OP question “What did the people of his time who looked at this Annunciation by Simone di Martini see” it presumes they saw something different that what we see – which in turn assumes that cultural symbols are the things we see that are important to the seeing. I suggest it is in the process of seeing – the meditation – that the object is “seen”, obtains value, and that perhaps this does not change that much for Christians in any age seeing Christian themed artwork from any age. It is the meditation that brings one closer to ones beliefs – even in the atheist it is the meditation with the dogma in the background that it is all just symbols revered by the gullible that confirms the belief that there is no God and these artworks are “just art – and not as good as later works – say works created post the rejection of a personal god by Spinoza in favor of a more Eastern approach of God is Nature.
I think the emotional content is mediated by symbols, but only if the symbols have an emotional content for the person seeing. The older paintings use symbols which have no emotional content for me. The paintings are still effective, and some lead me into a kind of meditation, which I try to write down for these posts. But I don’t think I have the same kind of reaction to them that was present in people of that time and culture. The story doesn’t resonate with me as it would for them. The symbols and the style don’t have the emotional content that they would have had on people of that time.
The Renaissance saw the introduction of perspective drawing. Before that, art was essentially flat.
Mary does not look at all pleased. More like What th’….
Does not seem joyful at all.
A lot of wealthy people commissioned art in the late Medieval period, or the very early Renaissance, and a common reason was to earn a better place in heaven. This is a grant of freedom to a serf, dated 1059:
What is most interesting to me is the second verse of the annunciata:
Which is mostly translated as :
Now look at the image again. Mary is certainly “favored” merely by the colors of her garb. They are “royal” scarlet and indigo, so she is clearly favored, yet as verse 29 says, clearly troubled by this visit. And there is far more nuance available in the Greek than is taken by the English.
For instance – διελογίζετο is translated as “cast in her mind” where I would say it meant “said to herself.” After all the verb is “dialogizeto” a past participle.
Also τῷ λόγῳ – she was troubled by “the word” not by any “saying”. I think the reason she would be troubled, is because of Luke and his Gentile ways. He just couldn’t get down with the Shlama al’khon that any Aramaic speaking Angel worth his salt would have greeted her.
I keep going back and forth about Marian lore and imagery. On the one hand, it is often inspiring and beautiful. On the other, it is often limiting and binding of women.
Which I suppose is not surprising given that merely mortal men dominated the making of these images and lore. And music.
Certainly, a bit later, the imagery and song go together a bit like this…
Thanks for another nice art-musing post Massacio.
Most interesting; I’ll have to remember you are able to translate Greek, may come in handy with future art posts.
I’m skeptical about the annunciation, but not in the way one might expect a “recovering Catholic” like myself to be. Don some tinfoil for a second and imagine what the reaction might be to a non-terrestial (perhaps non-corporeal) being paying a visit to a young woman, and how it might have been translated second- and third-hand. I think your translation of Luke’s version makes perfect sense from this perspective.
In fact, I wonder how sanitized it is by the limitations of words; would it have sounded more like the description of an alien visitation?
One might wonder how it is that angels so often appear in human form, for that matter; maybe they really didn’t but artists put a nice face on this. The truth of the matter might be reflected in the unconscious depiction of fear and reluctance shown in Mary’s body language.
I like your analysis. I have to point out that this garb Mary is wearing is the standard for this kind of painting from the Sienese School.
Should you have leisure to return to this thread, I hope that you’ll not mind my own observations too much:
My hunch is that the meaning of this is closer to
And so there is a double-layer here, it seems.
One probably has to do with the culture clash between those who were literate (Luke) and illiterate (Mary, and from what we know of the parables and his equisite use of spoken metaphors, Jeshua her son).
Then another layer is — as you point out — the Greek vs Aramaic layer involving translation across cultures and language groups.
Mary’s dress appears to be, as someone pointed out “Tyrian scarlet”, a sign of wealth. Tyre was a center of the metal traders out of Phoenicia (we’d call them ‘Palestinians’). The metal they traded was also shaped into the copper pots, which functioned to help set the dyes. (The dyes are almost certainly murex, from the murex shells of eastern Med.)
Mary’s blue robe has been, I’ve been told, associated with ‘the Queen of HEAVEN’, and her ‘pure light’ associated with the white light of the moon. (Maryam IIRC means ‘sweet water,’ and Maryam was associated with the moon back long before writing or metals.) So her colors go back long before writing, almost certainly.
As for the lovely YouTube linked here, note that the extraordinary choral music is mostly vowels. The vowels were ‘holy’ or ‘sacred’ early on to the Greeks and to others in the Near East. So the phonics involved in vowels allow for all kinds of manipulation of sound, and if you put your hand on your throat while singing along with a bit of that soundtrack, you’ll feel the vibrations and they are quite different from if you spoke a series of consonants.
Writing for the Greeks seems to have involved the use of vowels; the ancient Hebrews may quite well have first used them, but the Greeks OR — even more likely — Phoenician metal traders who had to deal with a multitude of languages on their travels, probably developed at least some form of notation that signified what we would call ‘the vowels’.
So the vowels has associations with the sacred, the holy, the invisible, the ‘good vibrations’, and also with religious rites. Also with carvings over portals and such.
I’m up far too late, but this thread was such a treat that I logged on to join in.
Soul-filling. Thanks, all.
Your hunches, very good and interesting.
But you must notice a thing.
It is only vowels and what are called liquid consonants that can be “sung.”
For instance, you can’t sing the letter “D.” Neither can you sing, “F” “T” or “S”.
Only “A, E, I, O, U” or “L, M, N, and R” can be sustained.
Dipthongs, combinations of vowels, can be truly sung. The rest of the letters are “initials” or “finials” you know, starting or stopping the vowel sounds.
You’ve sorted that bit out far better than I, and your comment is pure pleasure for me to read ;-))
I’d forgotten the bit about the liquid consonants (probably because when this was explained to me, I completely forgot the technical term used).
But yes, that choral music (which I personally think is ‘glorious’ in a peaceful, calm fashion), uses a very few letters/sounds, yet the qualities of sound and the combinations are myriad.
And in those churches, where the art was often part of the building, the acoustics were key to praising God, or so it was once explained to me.
So the combination of making the church architecture so that ‘light’ (ie, ‘God’s grace’) could shine in, and so that sound would reverberate exquisitely in response to the polyphonic music made often entirely by combined voices, probably combined to invoke a very ‘spiritual’ experience that is not part of most people’s 20th century experience in large cities on any continent.
Unless, perhaps, one happens to visit some of the true cathedrals and is fortunate to hear a sung mass or choir. (I once happened to hear a choir in a cathedral, and it made my spine tingle; it was a physical experience, and deeply emotional.)
So it seems a fair hunch that the beauty of the paintings was most likely also associated with the pleasure of hearing, or being a part of, choral music in an acoustically designed building — or the best they could make, given the times.
Yes, indeed. P.D. Ouspensky has much to say about Notre Dame of Paris, the Taj Mahal, and other manifestations of ‘esoteric’ architecture.
Marshall McLuhan suggested that the written phonetic alphabet’s ‘consonants’ are abstractions, existing only in the mind, while the ‘vowels’ occur in nature.
‘Facetiously’ has all the vowels in alphabetical order (h/t Old Farmer’s Almanac).
Before speech-as-we-know-it, maybe you’d rap the top of your head with your knuckles while your mouth was open but taut to make the sound that became (in Mod. E) ‘know’, you know? Like rapping your knuckles twice on a tent mast sounded like ‘knock’. (I figure ‘fire’ – in its earliest forms – imitated the sound it took to make it with the compressed and explosive breath while spinning a stick).
Wikipedia shows several examples here. It shows what I was saying about stylized forms.
I love the part that says Mary was favored (grace) by God….Some writers call her the first Disciple b/c she was so faithful (A strong woman)
Well, a most interesting thing in translation to me. The Greek says
The Vulgate (Latin version) says:
Quite a difference in meaning.
It is interesing how all that occurs…a sort of who knows? question, What do your translations say about the “virgin” part? As I understand the language, that has been confused as well. When I was in school, we were told the more accurate emphasis was on the “young girl” interpretation than Virgin. But I am not an expert in the translations.
Well, one thing is, there is a classic greek construction called the (in English) “hina, mei” construct, which basically boils down to “on the one hand,…on the other”
This is not used in the Luke above. He only uses the “mei” part “Μὴ”
I’ve always thought that was weird. Luke manages to get Mary’s name correctly “Μαριάμ” “Maryam” but never gets the greeting correct.
In the preceding verse, 27, Luke says:
Luke doesn’t say “virgin” he says “parthenon” like “parthenogenisis” how Zeus gave birth to Athena, out of his head.
If Luke meant a virgin wife like we mean it, he didn’t use the phrase for it, which would have been from the “gunaika” greek root.
Kelly, you put the two words in contrast – parthenon and virgin? how does Luke use the word parthenon? in my mind, to associate her with Zeus’ creation of Athena – and Luke was speaking to Greeks – brings a very interesting inference.
if Jesus were to be the new Adam, and Mary produced him in a manner similar to Zeus, doesn’t that make a rather subversive suggestion about God’s gender?
And then comes Jesus, and he directs his followers toward a peaceful role in the world, a rather dramatic change from the war-god Yaweh. and then the first and second centuries see women’s role in the christian faith growing more and more powerful….
(hmmmm, i seem to be having problems with apostrophe’s tonight. well, that IS the crux of the biscuit)
OK, it’s two different cultures to start with, then the language differences therein.
“Parthenon” is Greek and neuter in gender.
“Virgin” is Latin and and diminutive of “vir,” “man,” in Latin, (think “virile”) if not meaning “owned” by a man actually.
“Parthenogenesis” Athena was thrust out of Zeus’s head!
The word for woman in greek is “gunaika.” Not used in this Greek/Luke’s words.
Note that YHWH is all vowels; not a consonant in there. And it was a ‘holy name’.
El is probably the old Canaanite storm god, a name by which YHWH was earlier known; YHWH may well be newer than El, but became an overlay onto the earlier diety. God of thunder, lightning, and worshiped on the ‘high places’; the ‘pagans’ (or ‘paganos’) were the worshippers on the high places, trying to get closer to El.
Hold your hand over your throat and say “Yahweh” (YHWH). You’ll feel the ‘vibes’.
Then hold your hand over your throat and say “El”. Not nearly as full of vibrations, or ‘resonance’.
Note Biblical names:
Micha-EL
Dani-EL
Isra-EL
Emmanu-EL…
Seeing as Being and Speaking as Creating
In Hebrew, YHVH is the unpronounceable name of Adonai. It was only spoken by the high priest in the Temple. “Yaweh” assumes those ancient letters signify a pronunciation human beings can recognize and physically express.
In Exodus, Adonai identifies himself by another name to Moses — Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, which is translated as I shall be what I shall be, a declaration of infinite, incomparable Being in the future tense. This harkens back to Genesis story where naming was the act of creation.
Perhaps the divine spark within each person is that power to speak a world into being.
And I thought that it was only spoken by the High Priest on the Spring Equinox, or some other particular ritual day.
That’s really interesting, because alphabetic writing is also generative, and brings ‘worlds’ into being. So Ehyeh asher Ehyeh was certainly linked to that ‘divine spark’.
Which is marvelously expressed in the painting that masaccio examines, as well.
Looking at Giotto’s Adoration of the Magi, ca. 1300 or so, the artist has used the same combination of red and indigo on Mary’s robes. What a pity the work has degraded so badly.
How different the angel appears in Bellini’s announcement only a generation or two after Martini, although still retaining the symbolic lily. The angel is even more human-like than in Martini’s formal triptych.
Are they really lillies? or maybe datura?
Oh lilies, pretty certain they are lilies in Bellini’s angel’s hand. A bit stylized, but the stigma and six separate petals are the clincher. In fact I believe this is a solid depiction of a Madonna lily (lilium candidum).
I see your point, but look at the image viewer massacio references here: http://www.artchive.com/artchive/M/martini/martini_annunciation.jpg.html
zoom to 200% and look at those flowers. They are not lillium candidum. No six petal split, and I say look much more like datura
Nah. Lilies, not datura.
Besides, painting datura in a Christian icon like this might not have flown with a sponsor, since datura has a completely different connotation than that of the lily.
I confess I find Martini a little dry…
Imp!
But neither shaken or stirred…
I think you will find that the myth of alien or immaculate conception is a not uncommon paradigm used to indicate deity in the art and literature of various origins.
I wonder if you or I should consider we are all that disconnected to those who lived just a few hundred years before us. I doubt we could recognize and understand so much in their art and literature if we are not connected, in particular emotionally.
In fact for me personally I feel profoundly connected. It is my immortality. It reminds me that the universe was here when I arrived and will not go when I die.
How our perspective changes once we find we are part of an unbroken chain, yes? In the last year I’ve discovered my mother’s family is more Canadian than American, being among the earliest permanent settlers in the New World having been granted land on the banks of the St. Laurent river; it changed my perspective entirely about French and Franco-American history.
And Catholicism — I may no longer be a practicing Catholic, but without the Church I would have lost all the links to my family’s past.
Not unlike the painting of the Annunciation: a view of our past enabled by a religious organization.
Precisely. And as an atheist I honor and that role of religion. In thinking about it, it becomes clearer why groups defined by their religious belief (and we all are) hold on to it so tightly. We would be wise to understand that about these tormented people we have declared war upon.
I totally agree you about connectedness. I feel equally strongly about the connection with our older ancestors, the people of the cave paintings. There is a basic connection.
That said, I think it is risky to assume that we will respond to art, or to anything the way our ancestors would have. Take my example of Chinese Calligraphy. I may think it is “pretty” but I can’t understand why it is moving, and I’m quite sure I do not have the same emotional reaction to it that those raised in the culture have. I feel the same way about this Martini. I think it is lovely, but it barely moves me emotionally. The faces are too stylized. If I didn’t know the story and the Latin, I might miss the entire emotional content.
It isn’t easy to put yourself in the place of a 13th Century villager.
My sense the immediate emotional reaction is widely if not universally shared. It is when we start the intellectual examination that differences widen.
If you think about it, it is the art that survives. We have been doing art a long time.
I have been working on a better understanding of aesthetics and its place in the human make up (likely some other species too. You can’t convince me that my cat isn’t highly sensitive to the aesthetics of things.)
I think it may be a capacity developed to help us recognize when something in the environment is out of order. A sense of peace, and as Keats says truth, often accompanies the experience of beauty. But that’s a whole tangent.
Probably best not to compare the Chinese piece linked to the graphic art here, probably better to compare to written works instead. The calligraphy you linked to is fascinating in that it communicates the depth of feeling a person had for an extended family member. One doesn’t even need to be able to read the calligraphy to understand that someone felt enough to write a voluminous piece about someone who once cared for them as a child.
Imagine a similar eulogy written in Latin for a long-time maid of a upper-middle-class household; what kind of relationship would the person have to invest in a multi-page, multi-section eulogy?
The other telling feature of the calligraphy are the multiple stamps on the frontispiece, typically conveying information about the family and its members. Quite literally “seals of approval” on this person’s life.
Good point. I was thinking of calligraphy as an artform, so perhaps I should have chosen a different example.
Perhaps looking at the work of the Yuan Dynasty might help. There’s a similar flatness in perspective during that period, even though artists are clearly depicting depth of field in their work. Even sculpture has an oddly similar flatness when compared to works like that of Donatello.
It’s as if there was a global evolution as the period we know as the Renaissance approached.
I think I know who gets to write the piece on Calligraphy….
Thanks Masaccio, the Web Gallery of Art is another really good website
http://www.wga.hu/
Which I’ve used from time to time on my blog
The colors of Mary’s garb is dark Tyrian purple. Roman emperors wore different shades of this purple, the color being associated with imperial authority. Near the end of the wikipedia entry, there is a chart that shows the range of Tyrian purple:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_purple
It does kind of look like Gabriel is holding an olive branch, but notice the lily flowers between Gabriel and Mary. The lily became the symbol of Mary, as well as of the Merovingian, Carolingian and Capetian French monarchs.
I always thought of Mary’s reaction as one of humility more than distrust or fear.
That’s my understanding as well…favored by God…and she “pondered these things in her heart.” I think when we read it, we can imagine the fear of a young unwed girl, but that is not portrayed as her reaction from what I have read.
The big problem with seeing art on the web is that the colors aren’t exactly right. I’ve seen both the paintings I discussed here, and others, including an absolutely beautiful painting at the Uffizi the name of which I can’t recall. I would say the color is blue, with some other hue. I don’t trust my memory on this, but if pushed, I’d call it ultramarine from this Wikipedia chart. It has a royal feel, but that is in large part due to the gold woven into the border, and the really beautiful chair, and the surroundings. That, of course, is historically not likely.
The story is taught with Mary as humbly accepting of the will of God, but I have trouble seeing that in this work.
LOL. I have the same reaction. Being a feminist criticized often for that focus I chose not to mention it. But frankly it looks to me more like a powerful seriously intent male figure imposing will with Mary not at all submissive.
Yes – the historian, and non-barbarian greek-speaker Luke would be that intent male figure.
I have been trying to make this point sotto voce, but that’s simply not getting across.
One thing for sure subsequent actors strive to rewrite history into their own likeness.
Don’t you think some of these painters also spoke sotto voce in their choice of symbols and composition? This one got past the church censors.
Sure. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have received commissions for their works.
Leonardo DaVinci springs instantly to mind.
My point is that I all too often come across too harsh about the atheist gig, so I try to be erudite first, and see if people respond.
Being is enough
Yes, they did, it’s the very use of symbols which is the artist speaking under his breath.
I’m not ignoring Kelly’s subtle commentary, but women being compromised by the wishes of mostly male authority figures is as old as humanity. The survival of women and in turn, the human genome, required and continues to require us to be subordinate and submissive against our personal will. Mary only yielded to the supernatural where we lesser women must yield to the natural, the human.
And by subordinate and submissive I don’t necessarily refer to the subjugation of women to men. I mean the necessity of going to the dark place alone in the hours before birth where no man can go. Human kind will not continue without this implicit submission.
And perhaps the men of Luke’s time and Martini’s time had a better grasp of what was asked of Mary — that look on her face might well be fear and trepidation, after all. Women commonly died in childbirth, and this woman had been asked to bear fruit of a non-man at great personal risk.
man or non man, not a lot has changed. We have a Supreme Court likely to make that demand. (sigh)..
Yeah, that angel suddenly looks a little more like Chief Justice Roberts wearing different robes, yes?
Cherubic cheeks my right eye.
What an interesting topic…Thank you all.
Ah, finally found it, the image I’ve been thinking of since I first read this post. It’s an ikon of the Annunciation from the Balkans, painted at roughly the same time as Martini’s Annunciation.
The body language of the Virgin is more open, and yet there is a similar appearance of shock or surprise and hesitancy as there is in Martini’s depiction. The angel is again a winged figure, gender rather neutral, garbed in light-colored robes, but unlike Martini’s angel must gesture in this painting rather than speak.
I can’t recall another example of a painting with a speaking figure of this pre-Renaissance/early Renaissance period, now that I think about it.
The wings and cloak of the Angel are so powerful! It must have made those who viewed it feel the power of the Divine. And though almost a century later, the Wilton Diptyich also has a very bold gold background.
What is it about that Wilton Diptych that made me immediately think, “Ah, French!”? Is it the faces, I wonder?
It’s a beautiful piece, would love to see it in real life; it looks like it is readily portable, as if made deliberately for travel.
Yes, it is portable — and it is breathtaking in person. I’ve visited it many times in London, and it has become a “friend” to me. My reaction is to color and expression.
I can see even with the limitations of online representation why this piece would be a hit. The blue is phenomenal, must be so intense in real life.
The flesh tones, too, alone with the subtlety of the flush on cheeks is also wonderful, a real departure from the more flaccid and formal features by Martini in the triptych.
I doubt I’ll make it to the NGA soon, but I will put it on the list of must-sees for a friend who travels extensively. Or perhaps if my kid really does go to Oxford as he’d like in another 8+ years I’ll make the trip.
Oxford — oh that would be fabulous! Keep hoping and you’ll be there. And speaking of Oxford, visit the Ashmolean for the Dutch still life paintings. They will knock you out.
I’ve never seen this work before, it is really fascinating. The phalanx of angels with arms folded and wings in full display in the background is also very forceful.
My hope is that you might see it in person, it is so very beautiful. Thank you for this post masaccio — your writing is so insightful, and I’m getting hooked on these art posts! And, just so you know, I always have the image of the Expulsion in my mind every time I see your name here! Talk about emotion…
Must disagree with you.
I’m an atheist. Also an amateur ancient linguist and mega-appreciator of Art. I don’t find a qualitative difference in Art, either in paint, sculpture or music, or modern lively Arts from the Aeons or cultures. I think they’re all human and inspired and talented.
What they have is different circumstances in presentation, time and culture that must be understood for full appreciation.
I should add there is of course also the personal associations to a work of art (or anything else) that is has been a part of one’s environment.
For example. I don’t think about Jesus when I sit in a New England style pew viewing an alter backed by a stained glass window. I think of my family and being dressed up and being polite. (g) I also feel the safety and love from childhood.
Thanks, Masaccio — interesting post
That’s exactly it; Mary was not greeted with the customary and standard greeting of “peace be with you” to all at the time.
It was “here you go, like it or lump it.” And from a gentile. This episode does not occur in the other synoptic gospels by the Aramaic speakers.
I appreciate the stlye, form, materials and techniques rather than the subject matters. Message art is authoritarian. What is interesting is the freedom artists have secured over centuries. And thank you artists and museums for sharing your ideas and work. And it is worth a tradition here at the Lake. Three cheers for Massacio. Kelly’s Greek was pretty interesting. I like the organic quality of water colors.
Thanks so much, masaccio. Way interesting. Keep this series going if you can.
In Shakespeare’s Othello, Act 2, Scene 1, Cassio addresses Desdemona when she arrives on shore in Cyprus, after saying (Ye men of Cyprus, let her have your knees):
Hail to thee, lady! and the grace of heaven,
Before, behind thee and on every hand,
Enwheel thee round!
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After thanking Cassio and inquiring about Othello, whose ship has not arrived, she expresses worried concern.
So many layers! Cassio and Desdemona perform the rituals of the Courtly Tradition – the Allegory of Love, as C.S. Lewis calls it, the secularization of Love from inside the Church to the steps just outside, at first by the troubadours in Provence in the 12th century (I recall something about the Cult of the Virgin), then into poetry, onto the English stage, and finally Top 40 rock & roll.
Anyway, the allegory of Love was wholly foreign to Othello; for Iago it was beyond his ken; for Shakespeare’s play it encoded hot-button issues of allegiance and authority with regard to __________ (fill in the blank).
Hey, I found an article that describes Simone’s technique for expressing textile fabrics. Written by Cathleen S. Hoeniger in Gesta, , and titled: “Cloth of gold and silver: Simone Martini’s techniques for representing luxury textiles.”
The technique is “sgraffito”, from the Italian verb “sgraffiare.” The description of the scratch through technique of ground, metal and varnish is very interesting. Found on JSTOR, an archival serial database.
Oh dear, late to the party again. Great thread and post!
I think the patrons and artist(s) intended for this work to be experienced physically. Going for an emotional response was Romantic and developed later.
What this work brings to mind is the experience of shock and awe. I think the Virgin is depicted being impressed. She is noticing. She is in a state of being announced to.
A number of years ago I found myself in a room of really large Madonnas at the Louvre and had the experience of being extremely physically affected. The baby Jesus each great Madonna held were oddly adult looking and were just about the actual size of an actual adult. It was an experience of transference. — I — was in the arms of those great Mothers, solid and secure and the physical sensations were nearly overwhelming. A physical reverence came over me and left unforgettable marks. I think this is one reason people like Ouspensky commented on what they considered spiritual works of art.
Similar in this work of art. We are noticing. –WE– are being announced to, each one of us, personally in the flesh. The scholars are impressed (as we see on this thread) – lots there to explore. The commoners are impressed – lots of gold! But we are all sucked into the experience (and concept) of the annunciation by experiencing it ourselves.
And btw, the purple pigment might be purple floride. Just a guess.