Annunciation


courtesy of Christusrex
courtesy of Christusrex
courtesy of Christusrex
Title Annunciation of Cortona The Annunciation The Annunciation
Artist Fra Angelico
Date c 1432-3 c 1430 c 1430
Size 175cm x 180cm 194cm x 194cm .
Original location Church of San Domenico, Cortona The Dominican convent of Santo Domenico de Fiesole Santuario, S.Giovanni, Valdarno
Current location Museo Diocesano, Cortona Prado Museum, Madrid Santuario, S.Giovanni, Valdarno
Material
 &
 Technique		 Triptych, Panel Painting
Predella contains five scenes from the life of the Virgin and tow scenes from the legend of St. Dominic.		 Tempera on panel .
Source LUKE 1: 26-38
  1. In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,
  2. to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.
  3. And he came to her and said, "Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!"
  4. But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be.
  5. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
  6. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
  7. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High;
  8. and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there will be no end."
  9. And Mary said to the angel, "how can this be, since I have no husband?"
  10. And the angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow u; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.
  11. And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.
  12. For with God nothing will be impossible."
  13. And Mary said, "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her.
GENESIS 3:8-24
  1. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
  2. But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?"
  3. He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
  4. And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
  5. The man said, "The woman you put here with me - she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."
  6. Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
  7. So the Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
  8. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crash your head, and you will strike his heel."
  9. To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."
  10. To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
  11. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
  12. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your good until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."
  13. Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
  14. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
  15. And the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."
  16. So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
  17. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Settings
 &
 Symbols		 Time
March 25 (9 months before Christmas)

Place
Galilee named Nazareth. In loggia (Italian paintings)

Maria
"Ecce ancilla Domini" (Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord) is often written upside down in order to be read by God.
Maria is reading ISAIAH 7:14
"14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel."
Maria is holding a closed book ISAIAH 29:11-12
"11 For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say to him, 'Read this, please.' he will answer, 'I can't ; it is sealed.'
"12 Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, 'Read it , please,' he will answer, 'I don't know how to read."

Gabriel:
"Ave Gratia plena Dominus Tecum" (Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you)
The attribute is lily.
One of the tree Archangels (Michael, Raphael, Gabriel), and a messenger of God.

Enclosed garden
Symbol for Maria
SONG OF SONGS 4:12
"12 You are a garden locked up(Horutus conclusus), my sister, my bride; you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain."

Palm tree
Symbolize promise forever, which is derived from the fact that the tree is evergreen tree.
An attribute of Marie as the Immaculate Conception

Dove
Hovering over the the Virgin.
In the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the Dove is symbolize for Holly Spirit.
MATTHEW 3:16
"16 And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him;"

Adam and Eve/Expulsion from Paradise
GENESIS. 3:8-24

"In early Christian theology and exegeses personages and incidents of the Old Testament were regarded as mystical fore-runners and symbolically predictive of persons or incidents realized in the New Testament. In biblical illustration it became the custom for the figures or scenes of the Old Testament to be juxtaposed with or subordinated to the person or scene in the New Testament which each was thought to prefigure in order to demonstrate visually that the promise of the Old testament was fulfilled in the New Testament. In such cases the Old Testament picture was called 'type' and the New Testament picture (which was prefigured by it) was called the 'antitype'" <The Oxford Companion to Art>
Adam is prefigure of Jesus, Eve is prefigure of Maria
The story of the Expulsion is regarded as a kind of the opening act of the birth of Jesus. Jesus will be crucified and sacrificed for the sake of the redemption of Adam's sin.



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