Hans Memling's "Annunciation" with Angelic Attendants

Abstract

number of themes. Some of the great reputations in the history of art were built in the Netherlands on reworking similar paintings of well-known subjects. Like the great cathedral sculptors and the liturgy of the religion they celebrated, Netherlandish artists proved that reiteration might renew rather than reduce an article of faith. Surprisingly, the repetitive tendency of Flemish art did not become formulaic until the end of the fifteenth century. Memling's Annunciation (Figure 1),' believed to have been done in 1482 at the height of his career,2 closely follows a well-established tradition. Memling drew upon a convention, fully formulated by the 1420S, in which Gabriel, dressed in priestly robes, encountered Mary in a domestic Flemish interior. Within this utterly familiar setting, Memling diverges from the canonical kneeling, seated, or standing Virgin. One may search in vain in other Netherlandish Annunciation panels of the fifteenth century for a Virgin positioned as she is here, suspended between rising and kneeling and held forth by angels. As she gives her acceptance to an invisible God, Mary unselfconsciously turns fully forward, while the angel to her left raises his eyes to address the spectator directly. In spite of her meekness and unsure footing, the Virgin and her heavenly pages dominate the scene. The treatment of color, like that of the subject, mixes the conventional with the unexpected. The pristine luminous surfaces, admired since the time of van Eyck (d. 1441), combine with a rare iridescent wash, most noticeable on the garments of the angelic attendants. The painting reassures the viewer through its traditional forms and symbols, but intensifies the devotional content through the singular group of the Virgin and angels.