PALAZZO ABATELLIS AND REGIONAL GALLERY OF SICILY, Room Ten Virgin Annunciate

The Virgin Annunciate is a small oil on wood painted around 1477 by the Sicilian artist Antonello da Messina, one of the finest painters of the Renaissance. Antonello’s innovative style in this case revolutionized how the Virgin Mary was depicted; as you can see, she is shown here with no sacred symbols around her, and this painting more closely resembles a portrait of a young woman of her time than a religious image.  

Antonello painted Mary at the moment the Archangel Gabriel announces to her that she is to bear the Son of God; the subject is very common, but it is interpreted here in an entirely new way. While most paintings of the Annunciation show both the Virgin and the archangel, here Gabriel is nowhere to be seen; it is as if he is somewhere outside the frame, in the position occupied by the observer so, as you admire the work, you can imagine yourself engaged in a sort of dialogue with Mary, pictured behind a bookrest upon which is an open book. The Virgin seems to have been captured at the very moment she is about to pronounce the words we can read in the Gospel: “And how will this be?”. 

Her expression is unforgettable and seems to transmit a moment of reflection more than a sense of humble acceptance, while her right hand, beautifully modelled by the light, almost appears to be halting the invisible archangel, while her left hand modestly pulls the edges of her veil over her front, as if she were disturbed by the sudden apparition.

Note how the Virgin does not appear troubled by the news, and the superb elegance of her figure remains perfectly composed. These gestures, together with the complicity established by Antonello between the observer and the Virgin, create both a subtly enigmatic atmosphere, suspended in time, and a profoundly touching sense of intimacy....