Annunciation
CARAVAGGIO
CARAVAGGIO, c.1608. OIL PAINT FROM WOOD TRANSFERRED TO CANVAS
It is fitting, perhaps, that all that remains of Caravaggio’s hand in this painting is the Angel Gabriel. Subject to centuries of restoration, the painting has become almost a Frankenstein’s monster of retouching, preservation and repair. Yet Gabriel, floating above the Virgin Mary in a billow of clouds, has needed little of this work. Instead, the hand of the master is evident and all the more potent for it; Gabriel seems to emerge from the paintings plane in luminosity, escaping the confines of the canvas and floating between our world and the one Caravaggio depicts. Known for using everyday people as life models for religious figures and bringing his contemporary experience into his religious paintings, Caravaggio does not deify the Virgin Mary. Instead he presents her as an almost tragic figure, prepared for the burden required but crushed by the expectation. Caravaggio brought images of the Bible down to his modern world and with his brushstrokes elevated them to something divine.