AND THE WORD IS MAKING FLESH
The
Annunciation
is
revised
in
religious
simplicity,
characterized
by
a
clear
composition,
along
vertical
lines,
and
by
a
sober
chromatic
use.
The
dress
of
Mary
and
the
veils
of
the
Archangel
don't
follow
the
traditional
iconography.
Each
figure
occupies
and
measures
the
space
included
between
the
frontal
plain
and
the
back
one,
lighted
(more
towards
Mary)
with
a
misty
light
that
pervades
them
reflecting
in
their
faces
and
in
the
hands
gathered
under
the
chin
of
the
Virgin
Mary
to
watch
over
that
is
doing.
The
Archangel
holds
the
lily:
the
whole
is
lyrically thin and incorporeal.
The
austere
symmetry
of
the
two
postures
and
faces,
very
intense,
expressed
with
firm
belief
and
coherence,
communicates
the
participation
of
the
Angel
and
the
trust
of
Mary,
by
the
linear
purity
of
the
contour,
that
preserves
and
synthesizes
all
the
possible
grace
and
aids in exalting the event.
The
serene
and
inclined
faces,
the
closed
eyes,
the
"gratia
plena"
of
their
expression,
the
atmosphere
sharing
the
occurrence
and
the
silence
appropriate
to
the
spatial
sense,
the
perspective
structure,
concur
to
the
formal
unity
of
the
image
in
a
contemplative,
spiritual and moral feeling.
And the Word is making flesh
The
incorporeal
figure
of
the
Archangel
agrees
with
extreme
consonance
to
the
gesture,
cleverly
concluded,
of
Mary's
hands
gathered to defend the mystery that was making in Her.
Look and look again at the serene and hieratic ovals of the two faces, you'll find out all you thought to have forgotten.
As the painter writes: the darkness will be won.