Today, March 25th, is the feast of the Annunciation which, according to the Gospel of St Luke, marks the visit of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, during which he tells her she has been chosen to be the mother of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
It has been a favourite artistic subject throughout the Christian world, and depictions of it can be found everywhere from the Roman catacombs to books of hours, mosaics, sculptures and paintings, particularly during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. There are literally hundreds of Annunciation paintings from this period and it figures in the repertoire of almost all of the great masters.
Many of these works of art set the scene in a garden or have landscapes in the background but I was surprised how little seems to have been written about them as settings so, using just a tiny fraction of the paintings available as examples, here goes….
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