Last year I posted some images of the Announcing Archangel St. Gabriel, whose feast day it is in the Vetus Ordo, appropriate in the presence of tomorrow’s Annunciate, the Feast of the Annunciation. NB: The Feast of the Annunciation, as all Marian feasts, are intended always to redirect our eyes and hearts to the Lord, as hers were. Nevertheless we delight in reflecting on the role of Our Lady.
I’ll repost, with additions.
Today, the day before the Feast of the Annunciation, is the Feast of the announcing Archangel Gabriel. He is one of three holy angels whose name we know from Holy Writ. His name means roughly “God is my strength”.
Gabriel shows up in Daniel and helps to interpret his visions. Gabriel later announces the birth of John the Baptist to Zacharias (Luke 1:5-7). Then he announces the birth of the Lord (Luke 1:21-25). He is named in some apocryphal works as well. He is sometimes associated with the angel in Revelation who will sound a trumpet for the resurrection of the dead.
There are innumerable depictions of Gabriel before the Annunciate, sometimes more glorious and sometimes more humble. All interesting. Do you have a favorite?
Here are a few of mine.
Sandro Botticelli has Gabriel placing himself below the Annunciate. Note the colors of their robes and the position of their hands, the echo of the tree and lily, the perspective created with the flooring.
I have a soft soft for Barocci and his colors, and his tenderness and depiction of awe. Here the angel seems to be in awe even as he announces. Dove-winged Gabriel is in the very moment of explaining while pointing to the prayer book, Scripture, in her hand. And there’s a cat, ignoring the whole thing, which would be the usual thing for a cat to do in such a moment, for in paintings cats are often symbols of infidelity and fickleness. I also dig Mary’s hat, hanging up.
Years later we have this. From Glyn Warren Philpot, early 20th c.
Mary is not even seen except in the eyes of the angel.
No longer groveling below, he swoops in from above…
This is in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. I once knew the Maestro Grande and had a private tour to all the nooks there. Fascinating. Tintoretto emphasizes the poverty of the Holy Family and sense of surprise. Heaven suddenly pours into the wreckage of human living.
And Caravaggio with that light and that characteristic hand
Henry Ossawa Tanner, “The Annunciation,” 1898
Gabriel is more like himself, I think. He reminds me of the “pillar of fire by day”. Mary would become in this moment the tabernacle of the presence foreshadowed by the tent of meeting in Exodus. The angel is like the fire in the bush.
George Hitchcock… here the angel is the most like himself. He cannot be seen. This isn’t one of my favorites, but it is thought provoking.
Many will emphasize the dialogue. Could this be the most famous?
San Marco, Florence. Beato Angelico. I like the raptor wings and the lovely hortus. Note the hands of the Announcing and the Annunciate. I think you can right click and get a larger. You need it.
Leonardo seems also to emphasize the dialogue. Again with the hands. The Annunciate Virgin seems to be marking her place for reading when the interview is done. If not for her raised hand there seems to be little surprise, only slightly enigmatic attention. The raptor-winged angel is all business.
One could multiply these nearly beyond count.
Perhaps you have your favorites.
2025
Some of you did have favorites posted in comments last year.
Here’s one by Carlo Crivelli in the National Gallery in London.
There’s so much going on. Right click for a larger and be amazed.
A couple of guys on that arch are getting some business done. Perhaps a couple of birds are being purchased. Carrier pigeons, perhaps, and a dovecot given the topic of “message”. Next to that the portal to Heaven is open like something from Star Trek and a phaser of grace from the Holy Spirit is zapping down through the window. In the upper story, a rug is being aired and there is a pigeon, again, and in a cage a Christological Goldfinch. Oh yes, and a peacock which is a symbol of the resurrection because ancients believed that peacock flesh did not decay. The shelf in the Virgin’s rooms seems uncharacteristically disordered but the bed is made to military specs. Note the carpet on which she kneels is sort of scrunched. Perhaps because she was suddenly surprised? Gabriel didn’t even go inside and St. Emidius is photobombing with a model of his city Ascoli Piceno like a realtor. The motto “Libertas Ecclesiastica” is the title of the papal bull that gave the city its rights. On the feast there was a procession to the monastery of the Observant Friars, whom you see on the left. Is the guy in red and black the patron of the artist who commissioned this? Maybe with his child? More details. A guy in the street seems to be either trying to figure out what he has to buy at the market or he’s eyeing the strangely garbed loiterers along the way. Through a tiny gap in an archway, a women is talking with a bucket on her head. And in the foreground, it wouldn’t be Crivelli without some seemingly random veggies, here an apple (the Fall of Man) and a squash or cucumber (Redemption). They also given depth to the painting by an optical illusion.
Annunciation by George Hitchcock, Philadelphia.
This seems to be more of an interior locutions. The Medival and Renaissance idea of a hortus inclusus might be going on here. Often when the Virgin is reading, the text is thought to be from the Prophet Isaiah. I can’t make out what the Hebrew says, if anything.
Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s “Ecce Ancilla Domini”. A rather sparse palette for this pre-Raphaelite painter. The embroidery she is working on is feature in another of his paintings about Mary’s childhood.
Note: No wings and his feet are on fire. His hand is raised slightly as if to say “Do not be afraid”. The Holy Spirit is barely noticeable. Her hair is messy and she is staring at the lily (or beyond) as if she has never seen one. She’s all drawn up and pulling back. It is an odd painting, to me. Is Gabriel casting a shadow?
A fine young artist who does fusion stuff, Daniel Mitsui, did a samurai version of Gabriel coming to Joseph for the second time in a dream telling him to get outta Dodge. Check out his site. His version of the war in Heaven is worth your time.
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