Dual Impressions

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Only great art can be great religious art. But many of the religious masterpieces of the past remain inaccessible to us today because the style and content of these works of art are unfamiliar to our eyes and to our knowing. The iconography, that is, the imagery and symbols that were part of the visual language of earlier ages, is no longer part of our visual vocabulary. Then, too, the slow, attentive, expectant perusal of a painting demands of us a discipline of seeing that is contrary to our habits in everyday living.

We all look at the visible world in a selective way. The focus of our attention is determined by our past experience and present interests. The constant selecting of what will be seen and how it will be seen is a kind of editorial activity of the conscious mind, an activity that ceaselessly shapes our individual seeing of the exterior world.

To abdicate consciously our own self-determined and self-centered way of seeing is not easy. But nothing less than a kind of self-abdication is demanded of us by a great work of art. It asks us to see it, if for only a few moments, in terms of the vision that it represents and expresses. Those who go to art galleries and museums confined within the vision of their own making tend to respond to paintings with “I like this one, that one I don’t like”—that is to say, this one accords with and confirms my own private, limited vision, whereas the second one does not.

But when we are willing to receive the meaning of the work of art in accordance with the artist’s vision, we experience an exhilarating expansion of understanding. Momentarily, we see with the 025artist’s eyes, and feel the artist’s pulsebeat. This moment is a truly creative interval for the beholder. The famous art critic and connoisseur, Bernard Berenson, has described this experience:

“In visual art the aesthetic moment is that flitting instant, so brief as to be almost timeless, when the spectator is at one with the work of art he is looking at, or with actuality of any kind that the spectator himself sees in terms of art, as form and colour. He ceases to be his ordinary self, and the picture or building, statue, landscape, or aesthetic actuality is no longer outside himself. The two become one entity; time and space are abolished and the spectator is possessed by one awareness. When he recovers workaday consciousness, it is as if he had been initiated into illuminating, exalting, formative mysteries. In short, the aesthetic moment is a moment of mystic vision.”

One of the most curious effects of this experience of aesthetic vision is that it makes artists of us, creating in us a new vision for everyday life. Berenson gives an example of this when he tells us of his visit to the Freer Collection in Detroit, Michigan, on a frosty, wintery afternoon:

“I had been looking for hours at Chinese pictures of trees in snowy landscapes. The light of the day was failing, and as no lamps or candles were permitted, there was nothing to do but to start going away. As I was getting up from the table I turned round, and without realizing that I was looking through a window at the out of doors, at natural objects and not artifacts, I cried out, ‘Look, look, these trees are the finest yet!’ So they were, for how can man compete with ‘nature’? I had been enabled to feel this without the aid of an artist to reveal it.”

The succession of humdrum events of daily living, as well as the rare precious events, when seen in terms of their iconography are graced with significance and dignity because their symbolic possibilities are underlined. When we experience the kaleidoscope of daily visual experiences as changing form, design and composition, it ceases to be meaningless. When we, like the painter who creates a work of art, endow with significance the forms of our visual experience, we become artists in relation to the visible world about us.

Let us look closely at two paintings with the same subject matter, the Annunciation. We shall see how the Flemish artist Jan van Eyck (1380–1441) and the Italian artist Sandro Botticelli (1444–1510) differ in their artistic interpretations of the moment of the Incarnation.

Van Eyck’s “Annunciation,” now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., exhibits the exquisite detail that a master’s hand can achieve using the medium of oil paint, a relatively recent invention at the time (about 1434–36).

Van Eyck encloses his two figures in a narrow, apselike end of a church. At the left, Gabriel, who seems to have just appeared, is richly garmented in a heavily brocaded, bejeweled mantle. His wings glow with the intensity and range of color of peacock feathers. He wears a crown and carries a scepter, both adorned with gems. Both crown and scepter are symbols of earthly rulership. Gabriel does not look directly at Mary, but as he speaks the words of greeting—“Ave Gr[ati] a Plena” (Hail Mary, Full of Grace)—his lips curve 026into a cryptic, blissful smile.

Mary, who has been reading from the Scriptures open before her, raises her head and hands in a gentle gesture of reverent and bemused acceptance. The words of her reply to the salutation of Gabriel are visible in the painting: “Ecce Ancilla D[omi]ni” (Behold, I am the Handmaiden of the Lord). But they seem uttered involuntarily and to the heavens above, rather than to the angelic messenger whose presence Mary hardly perceives.

Neither Mary nor Gabriel is haloed, but the dove, symbolic of the Holy Spirit, is seen descending upon rays of light from a clerestory window above. The rays fan out in a clearly balanced pattern and are seven in number, a reference to the seven gifts¹ of the Holy Spirit, which at the moment of the Incarnation are communicated to Mary.

Mary is garbed simply, in a deep blue, heavy garment. We assume that she is kneeling before the bench that holds the book. Yet only her relative height in relation to the steeply angled floor is evidence for this conclusion. Her body is swathed in concealing folds; proportion and posture are indicated only by the belt that seems to encompass her narrow torso just beneath the highly placed, small breasts. Delicate and lovely are the narrow little hands raised in a gesture of surprise and acceptance. Her head, inclined to one side, is a narrow oval with a high forehead and small features that neither protrude generously nor recede deeply from the essentially egg-shaped surface.

Directly above Mary, a stained-glass window is illumined, and a representation of the Lord God of the Old Testament is seen, his feet resting on the globe symbolizing the earth. Thus, this painting has additional subject matter, namely, the Trinity—God symbolized in the window above, the Holy Spirit as the dove descending, and Mary, the bearer of the incarnate Word of God in the church.

The symbolic meanings in van Eyck’s “Annunciation” are by no means exhausted by this description. Every inch of this little painting has details that refer to the central mystery of the Incarnation. The tiles of the floor have Old Testament subjects, and in every case, the subject is seen as a prefiguration of events in the New Testament. David’s victory over Goliath (foreground tile) is understood to be a prefiguring of Christ’s victory over Satan; Samson’s death, a prefiguring of the crucifixion of Christ.

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This understanding of Old Testament events is foreign to present-day thought. It is difficult for those who inhabit 20th-century space and time to understand the significance, the power and the comfort that this kind of symbolic allusion had for late medieval people. To Christians in the medieval world, the Gospels were indeed the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Jesus had said, “Everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44). Christian theologians searched the Old Testament to find analogies to the events in the life of Christ. The events of the Old Testament thus had a special relevance and a kind of poignancy for the Christian believer.

The lilies in the foreground are a common symbol for Mary’s virginity and purity. Van Eyck places the lilies in a vase in the foreground near a brocaded footstool, making a very charming, exquisitely executed still life. In this detailed and painstaking way, he depicts “naturalized symbols”—symbols that are so much part of the total environment that, collectively, they can be understood as a still life, or they can be interpreted in their symbolic functions, pointing beyond themselves to meanings well known to the Christian believer.

The composition of van Eyck’s small “Annunciation” is organized around repeated perpendiculars. The high, narrow shape of the panel itself defines the space and confines our view of the scene. The two figures are essentially vertical in their emphasis and are enclosed by the repeated perpendiculars of the columns. The deviations from the vertical, such as the slender scepter held by Gabriel and the heavenly rays, only serve to accentuate the solidity of the perpendicular structure of the whole composition.

Van Eyck loved descriptive detail and verisimilitude; he filled every inch of his panel with realistic detail.

One of the most arresting points in the painting is the disjunction between the figures and the space they occupy—they are of enormous difference in scale. How tiny the church would have to be for its columns to be only slightly taller than Mary and Gabriel! But because of the incredible realism of the many details that capture our attention and delight our senses, we see this basic lack of realistic space relationships only when it is called to our attention.

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Van Eyck’s single-mindedness in regard to space relationships has an analogy in the lack of emotional relationships between the figures. Gabriel smiles his secret, eternal smile and points heavenward. But his expression, gesture, and even his posture have inner completeness. Mary, although her head inclines toward Gabriel, seems unaware of his presence. She looks dreamily at us, and beyond us, seeming attentive only to her own inner stirrings.

It is a strange and wonderful little painting, showing an appetite for endless detail and a delight in the sensual—the texture and feel of exquisite fabrics, the gleam of precious jewels, the luster of fine marble and tile.

Botticelli’s “Annunciation,” now in the Ufizzi Gallery in Florence, also depicts the moment when the angel Gabriel’s words are fulfilled:

“And the angel said to her,

‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you,

and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;

therefore the child to be born will be called holy,

the Son of God’ ” (Luke 1:35).

Botticelli vividly contrasts the assured urgency of the angel’s forward movement with the yielding, trancelike bending of Mary. The angel’s and the Virgin’s hands, too, suggest their contrasted roles—the angel’s hand erect and commanding, Mary’s hands yielding, receiving. Mary’s hips sway to one side as her head tilts forward like a flower on a windbent stem.

The angel’s garments are a complicated mass of folds and involuted contours, whereas Mary’s garments are more sinuous, described with lines that are more slow-moving and by areas that are larger and less complicated.

The symbols in the painting are naturalistically rendered as part of the scene, a typical Renaissance characteristic. The details that have symbolic meaning do not claim our attention as symbols only, but seem plausible as a part of the setting. The stalk of white lilies the angel holds is botanically correct and is in the proper scale in relation to the figures. Symbolic of Mary’s purity and virginity, lilies are often seen in Annunciation paintings, but here they are naturalistically incorporated into the scene, losing their sign-like character.

Botticelli’s room opens upon a terrace. Beyond it is an enclosed garden with a single, slender tree rising gracefully from the center of the walled-in area. Here again, although this scene can be 030enjoyed in itself as a poetic background setting, it can also be interpreted symbolically. The closed garden is a traditional symbol of Mary’s virginity, and the tree rises in fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, “There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse and a flower shall rise out of his root” (Isaiah 11:1).

Ambrose² interpreted the tree in this way: The root is the family of Jews, the stem is Mary, and the flower is Christ. The tree received an additional meaning in medieval and Renaissance times. It recalled not only the genealogical tree of which Christ was the flower, but also the means of Christ’s death. In the book of Acts, Paul speaks of Christ “whom they slew and hanged on a tree” (Acts 10:39). The tree thus became a symbol for the cross. Here at the joyous moment of the Incarnation, Botticelli reminds us of the sacrificial death to come.

Once the imagination is quickened by this kind of symbolic reference, it tends to expand the possible interpretations. The little vista beyond the garden suggests further meanings. We see a river undulating along the sloping banks, with a sailing ship afloat and reflected in its calm waters; we see crenelated city walls that terminate at the arched river bridge, and a many-towered edifice at the left. This complex of buildings crowned by many spires and set amid rocky pinnacles lies behind Gabriel and could refer to the heavenly Jerusalem, whereas the darker, more solid, walled city at the right might refer to the earthly Jerusalem. Gabriel, the heavenly representative, and the heavenly Jerusalem are then at our left; Mary, the earthly handmaiden of the Lord, and the earthly Jerusalem are at the right.

Gabriel’s announcement takes place in a room that is empty except for a lectern. Like the lectern in van Eyck’s painting, this lectern holds the Hebrew Bible. According to St. Bernard,³ when Gabriel appeared, the Bible that Mary was reading was open to Isaiah’s prophecy, “Behold, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son” (Isaiah 7:14). Botticelli has constructed this room with great accuracy in terms of depth perspective. The tiled floor provides our eyes with a kind of template for determining exact relationships within space.

Like his contemporaries, Botticelli had achieved an understanding of the rules governing perspective, and he used his knowledge with skill and consistency. His command of space relationships is interestingly demonstrated in the way in which he depicts the halos. The Madonna’s head is seen in three-quarter view and slightly bowed; her halo is depicted as being at exactly the same angle as the head. The angel’s halo, like his face, is seen in profile.

Today the rules for perspective are so well known that art students can achieve effects that would have dazzled Botticelli and van Eyck. But in the 15th century, learning these rules was a feat, and convincingly rendering a depth dimension on a flat surface was a slow process. Though we tend to think of perspective as a mere tool used principally in academic or advertising art, for the Renaissance artist the rules of perspective served as the spelling out of the natural harmony of the laws of perception.

Let us now look at some contrasting elements in the two pictures.

Van Eyck’s setting for the event of the Incarnation is a church. Both the shape of the painting itself and the church interior are tall and narrow. In contrast, Botticelli places the event in a wide, somewhat barren room, empty except for the Virgin’s lectern, with a doorway open to the adjacent, enclosed garden. Botticelli’s painting is almost square, the most stable of all mathematical forms. Light and air seem to flow into and about the Virgin’s room: The light touches her forehead, cheeks, eyelids and hands, and the air lifts her veil and the angel’s flowing sash. Stillness radiates from van Eyck’s Gabriel and Mary; movement characterizes Botticelli’s figures.

Van Eyck’s picture has disparate perpendicular lines that define its composition. There is no single point from which the architectural setting and the figures are seen. We as the spectators seem to be above the floor, looking down on it, yet each of the figures is placed before the floor as if they are directly in front of us. Botticelli, on the other hand, used a single, unifying vanishing point from which we view the picture. This vanishing point is approximately where the turreted tower in the background projects upward a little to the right of a bridge over a winding river. The tile floor of Botticelli’s room is laid out so that the parallel lines receding from our eyes draw together at this point. The figures are also seen from the same viewpoint.

Van Eyck’s “Annunciation” exhibits the artist’s great ability to represent space, but it is a quite different space from Botticelli’s. Botticelli constructed his room first, and then placed his figures in it. His figures are integrally related in size and placement to the architecture. In van Eyck’s panel, the amount of exquisite detail may obscure for us a fact that is nonetheless true: The spatial relationships are not realistic; the figures and objects in the foreground would have to be immense in size, and the church’s nave would have to be tiny for us to see their true spatial 031relationships. Van Eyck focuses first on the individual details of persons, places and things, and only secondarily on their spatial relationships.

As is the case in most 15th-century Flemish paintings, the holy persons in van Eyck’s “Annunciation” are not depicted with halos. (Botticelli, on the other hand, places halos on both the archangel and Mary.) For Flemish artists, like van Eyck, religious symbols are disguised as “scrupulously observed objects of the artist’s own world and time.”⁴ Thus the details of the church interior in van Eyck’s painting are faithful to the early architectural forms with which van Eyck was familiar. But each detail is saturated with references to the divine presence and the sacred significance of the moment of the Incarnation. God the Father is depicted in the stained glass window above and is flanked by wall paintings of the finding of Moses (which was viewed by medieval Christians as a prefiguration of the nativity of Jesus) and of Moses receiving the Law. The prominent footstool in the foreground refers to Isaiah 66:1: “Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.”⁵

The figures in van Eyck’s painting reflect an inner serenity and completeness. By contrast, Botticelli’s angel reflects an urgency and drama that is entirely absent from van Eyck’s “Annunciation.”

If we imagined the words of the angelic salutation, “Ave Gr[ati]a Plena” (Hail Mary, Full of Grace), and of Mary’s reply, “Ecce Ancilla D[omi]ni” (Behold, I am the Handmaiden of the Lord), added to Botticelli’s painting, we would probably think them utterly inappropriate and incongruous. Yet they are in no way jarring in van Eyck’s serene little detailed panel. Indeed, van Eyck’s ingenious literal-mindedness extends to a delightful detail: The words of the angel are given as if inscribed in front of our eyes, but Mary’s reply is in mirror-image and upside down, as if seen and read from the heavens above, from God’s eye-view. The complicated symbolic references are part of the Flemish artist’s tendency toward didacticism and storytelling, as opposed to the Mediterranean bent toward the dramatic. The unrelatedness of the two figures is another Flemish characteristic; van Eyck’s Mary and Gabriel think their own thoughts and dream their own dreams, the agent of the Incarnation being, the dove.

By contrast in Botticelli’s painting the urgent, tense movement of the angel is the occasion for the tender submissive movement of Mary. The angelic messenger and the handmaid of the Lord are bound together by their reciprocal roles and the high significance of the moment. Botticelli dramatizes the event; van Eyck describes it in endless, beautiful, serene detail, and points to the symbolic significance of this timeless moment.

Similarly, Botticelli conceives of the body as an organic structure that possesses the potentiality for movement. The urgent movement and gesture of his angel contrasts with the quiet, static posture of van Eyck’s angel. We are in no doubt about the position of Botticelli’s angel beneath its complicated garments, but the body of the van Eyck angel is difficult to discern. Is van Eyck’s angel kneeling or standing? The posture of van Eyck’s Mary is even more ambiguous. The textures of the ample robes of van Eyck’s figures have been the focus of interest for the artist rather than the bodies’ positions beneath these garments. But Botticelli is interested in the human body as an organic unity capable of movement (just as he is interested in the organic connections of space), and in his painting the garments accentuate rather than conceal the postures of Mary and Gabriel.

Botticelli’s Mary and Gabriel have an ease of posture, an almost ballet-like grace of gesture that is highlighted by the austerity of the empty room. But this grace cannot conceal the angel’s nervous intensity and Mary’s exaggerated movement, which create the drama of the moment.

Michelangelo is reported to have said that great painting is a “music and a melody which only the intellect can understand, and that with great difficulty.” It may seem strange that he should link the intellect with the understanding of music and melody. The present-day tendency to decry and dismiss the part the mind plays in an aesthetic response is summed up by the oft-repeated vulgarism, “I don’t know anything about art but I know what I like.” This simply is not true; the opposite is the case. The more we know about art in general, and about the particular painting, the more accessible that painting becomes to our understanding. The informed mind and attentive eye provide the “Open, Sesame” for the vivifying moment when the barriers between our world and the artist’s vision disappear. Momentarily, then, we see with the artist’s eyes and feel with his or her pulsebeat.

Only great art can be great religious art. But many of the religious masterpieces of the past remain inaccessible to us today because the style and content of these works of art are unfamiliar to our eyes and to our knowing. The iconography, that is, the imagery and symbols that were part of the visual language of earlier ages, is no longer part of our visual vocabulary. Then, too, the slow, attentive, expectant perusal of a painting demands of us a discipline of seeing that is contrary to our habits in everyday living. We all look at the visible […]