Last year I ended a ten-year streak of weekly posts on my Angelus blog; it's not that I ran out of Annunciations to feature each week: I ran out of time juggling this sideline while also promoting my new book! But that doesn't mean I don't still collect artwork featuring the Annunciation. And it doesn't rule out a possible future lecture series on the Annunciation in art, either.
Today's art feature is not an Annunciation. At least, not the usual kind. From the National Gallery of Art (Mellon Collection), this 15th century painting is attributed only to a "Follower of Rogier van de Weyden." In many ways it reflects the usual iconography for an Annunciation: the Virgin Mary is at her pre-dieu with an open book, but turned in surprise toward a visitor who bears a staff. Typically, this would be the Archangel Gabriel, ready to announce to Mary: "Hail, full of grace... you will conceive and bear a son...the Lord God will give him the throne of David, his father; he will rule over the house of Jacob forever..."
But in this painting, the visitor is holding a staff in the form of a cross, from which a banner of victory is waving. And the messenger is no angel, but the Son of God and of David, risen from the dead: the wound in his side is still bright red. Christ is "announcing" to Mary his own Resurrection. It is generally presumed that Christ appeared to his mother immediately upon rising from the dead. In this regard, St. Teresa of Avila actually reports having learned from the Lord himself that he went to his mother "and stayed with her a long time, because she needed it."
He is risen, and he wants to stay with us, too. Do you feel the need?
No comments:
Post a Comment