Legends of the Madonna, as represented in the fine artsForming the third series of Sacred and legendary art . was most spiritual, most hallowed,most elevated, became secularised, materialised, and shock-ingly degraded. No subject has been more profoundly felt and more beau-tifully handled by the old painters, nor more vilely mishandledby the moderns, than the Annunciation, of all the scenes inthe life of Mary the most important and the most commonlymet with. Considered merely as an artistic subject, it issurely eminently beautiful: it places before us the two mostgraceful forms which the hand
Legends of the Madonna, as represented in the fine artsForming the third series of Sacred and legendary art . was most spiritual, most hallowed,most elevated, became secularised, materialised, and shock-ingly degraded. No subject has been more profoundly felt and more beau-tifully handled by the old painters, nor more vilely mishandledby the moderns, than the Annunciation, of all the scenes inthe life of Mary the most important and the most commonlymet with. Considered merely as an artistic subject, it issurely eminently beautiful: it places before us the two mostgraceful forms which the hand of man was ever called on todelineate;—the winged spirit fresh from paradise; the womannot less pure, and even more highly blessed — the chosenvessel of redemption, and the personification of all femaleloveliness, all female excellence, all wisdom, and all purity. We find the Annunciation, like many other scriptural in-cidents, treated in two ways — as a mystery, and as an in the former sense, it became the expressive symbolof a momentous article of faith. The Incarnation of the Deity,. \ THE ANNUNCIATION AS A MYSTERY. 181 Taken in the latter sense, it represented the announcement ofsalvation to mankind, through the direct interposition ofmiraculous power. In one sense or the other, it enters intoevery scheme of ecclesiastical decoration ; but chiefly it is setbefore us as a great and awful mystery, of which the twofigures of the angel-messenger and Mary the highly-fa-voured, placed in relation to each other, became the univer-sally accepted symbol, rather than the representation. Considering the importance given to the Annunciation theAnnun- , . il i 1 r> 1 • CIATION AS A in its mystical sense, it is strange that we do not nnd it the very ancient symbolical subjects adopted in thefirst ages of Christian art. It does not appear on the sar-cophagi, nor in the early Greek carvings and diptychs, norin the early mosaics — except once, and then
Size: 1322px × 1891px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade18, booksubjectmaryblessedvirginsaint
