My Kid Could Paint That

Filippo Lippi, Annuciation, 1435

By MEGAN GANNON
I feel like painting involves a lot of trust. That every time you look at a piece of art you take a leap of faith, most times this jump is strictly metaphorically, but on that rare occasion a painting will touch on a such a level that your physical body will react. Whether through a single tear shed or a look of jaw-dropping awe.

Unfortunately, Filippo Lippi’s Annunciation painted in 1435 is not that painting. Though I argue that Renaissance art takes a bit more faith than modern. I believe this stems not only from the context, but the viewer herself. To truly comprehend a Renaissance painting one needs more than rudimentary knowledge of color and composition. We need something more to understand.

I feel that’s why Renaissance art often seems so tedious. You can’t look at a piece of art from the 15th century and automatically assume that Mary’s hand placement indicates that she feels conturbatio or disquiet. Let alone how do you know the woman in blue is the mother of Christ, the virgin?

I am not a person of the 15th century, so how do I see a painting like one? And what does it mean when I shift my own perspective to fit someone else's? As I step in my Quattrocento shoes I understand that due to strict contracts set up by patrons of the Church and prominent families like the Medicis in Florence that automatically the artist must play be someone else’s rules.

Despite contracts assigning what percentage of Ultramarine blue must be used on Mary’s gown or the general composition of the painting itself, artists still held some control. Lippi when painting his Annunciation knew that in some way or another he had to tell the story of the angel Gabriel coming to tell Mary that the son of God lived within her. Now from here according to Michael Baxandall in his book, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, Lippi had five choices in choosing how to display Mary: "Conturbatio-disquiet, cogitatio-reflection, interrogatio-inquiry, humiliatio-submission, or meritatio-merit" (Baxandall 51).

For his painting, Lippi ultimately chooses conturbatio or disquiet, the viewer can determine this by either eliminating all others or evaluating Mary’s posture in addition to her facial expressions. She bows her hand, clutching her abdomen in awe, twisting her hands around her garments knowing that she is now responsible for bringing the son of God into the world. Her face, with her half-opened eyelids peering down hints at the curiosity, excitement and fear that her pregnancy brings.

Although Lippi attributes Mary with human emotion, he must include a reference to flowers, white lilies, and paint the angel Gabriel with wings and kneeling towards Mary in order for his painting to qualify as an Annunciation. The indicators of the Gabriel’s kneeling, his wings, Mary in blue, the white lilies all allow the general public of the 15th century to identify with the painting.

With his requirements out of the way, Lippi may now paint freely. He separates Mary and the angel Gabriel with a column, giving the impression that Gabriel exists only as an apparition in Mary’s mind. She receives his words from the songbird that spouts the latin from it’s beak. Mary exists on slightly higher ground than Gabriel, demonstrating that although it appears they occupy the same space in reality they do not. Gabriel's side of the room, allows the light to flow freely with airy blues tones covering the walls and window drapery. As for Mary’s side, the only light exists in a circle around her body indicating the divine connection that exists within her moment with Gabriel. The rest of her room falls dark with earthy tones occupying the space around her. Within her room, red acts as the only other color, a representation of charity, it seems fighting that it stems from garments around her heart.

Lippi creates a sense of depth through his open spaces in the background of the painting. The book and rose on the bookshelf behind Mary hint at her beauty-the rose and her devotion- the bible. Although not particularly ornate, I adore Lippi’s Annunciation for the comfort I feel when I look at the connection between Gabriel and Mary. At the scariest moment of her life, Lippi reminds me that she is in the light and she will be okay.

Baxandall through his book helps one to understand that "something more" that Renaissance art requires. I used to grow frustrated by attempting to remember the significance of triangles and circles around paintings, the meaning of colors and hand gestures; but now I understand that although I might not initially get it. I don’t need to. That sometimes the most profound paintings are not only the beautiful ones, but the ones that force you to open up a book and understand that Mary is never as simple as you believed she was.

So I urge you to jump off that ledge and land in the world of 15th-century Italy, because I promise you will not be disappointed.

Fra Angelico, The Annunciation, 1445

Spoiler alert: “Most fifteenth-century paintings are religious pictures” (Baxandall 40).

Now that we’ve all recovered from that shocker, let’s move on. It’s not surprising that in the study of Renaissance art history, one is bombarded with countless Madonna and Childs and innumerable Crucifixions. You might think the artists didn’t have any creativity, or that 15th-century life wasn’t interesting enough to paint anything else, but there was a clear-cut reason for the abundance of religious paintings: instruction. In the days when the Church controlled the commission and production of art, art became a tool to educate the general public about their own religion. It was a way to envision stories so that people could better understand them, and to create a spark of interest and spark religious fervor in their minds.

But, how? An artist cannot just paint a religious scene however they want. An artist’s rendition of a scene must be ambiguous to appeal to many people’s internal visions, but succinct enough to keep a clear meaning. It wasn’t easy. Artists were expected to produce art that would excite, compel, and educate viewers. With the notion that the viewers of religious artwork were primarily ignorant and uneducated common folk, art could not be too complicated. One pope put it like this,“What a book is to those who can read, a picture is to the ignorant people who look at it,” (Baxandall 41). With the Bible as the book in question, artists did not have a lot of leeway in their art. Perhaps that is why so many Annunciations look so similar.

Take Fra Angelico’s rendition. The artist rendered the well-known story simply, with vibrant colors and interesting detail. The faces of Mary and Gabriel show little emotion, which allows viewers to decide what Mary was feeling when she received the big news. The reasoning behind this ambiguity is that, “The public mind was not a blank tablet on which the painters’ representation of a story could impress themselves; it was an active institution of interior visualization with which every painter had to get along” (Baxandall 45). No matter how Fra Angelico thought the story went – his art was for the public so it had to follow a certain code of objectivity. With this in mind, paintings that were once blank and emotionless transform into opportunities for imagination and personal interpretation.

Angels We Have Heard on High
The Imagery of Angels in Christian Art
Curated by Camille O'Leary

Francisco de Zurbarán, The Annunciation, 1650

Wow. This painting has even more babies.

Angels We Have Heard on High
The Imagery of Angels in Christian Art
Curated by Camille O'Leary

Jan van Eyck, Annunciation, 1434

Simone Martini, Annunciation, 1333

And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favor with God. And behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. Luke 1:31