… and here’s hoping for a peaceful New Year. My December Painting of the Month takes me further back than Christmas and the Nativity to a time when a reluctant young hero accepted what was her duty without fully realising the significance. Oh for such faith and hope!

It also takes me back to a visit last summer to the Prado in Madrid. Seeing Fra. Angelico’s The Annunciation close up was probably the highlight of the visit. I am such a sucker for paintings in egg tempura and this must be one of the finest in history.

We see the painting in three sections. On the left is the garden the ‘Horus conclusus’ representing the virginity of Mary. The expelled Adam & Eve are in the Garden and are  imagined outside the main event. The perspective of the architecture draws us into the  two right hand panels and the Archangel Gabriel giving God’s message to Mary. Fra. Angelico’s colours are exquisite. Mary is bowed as she accepts the importance of what is to happen for her. Meanwhile in the garden we see a range of plants which are portents of the future. The lilies are Mary’s symbols, but there are blood red roses of the Passion and the palms representing Christ’s Martyrdom.

The final piece of the painting is the divine light from the top left passing through the dove of the Holy Spirit and resting above Mary, not unlike the Star of Bethlehem.

Fra.Angelico originally painted this as an altar piece for a church in Fiesole in Italy around 1430. There is a predella below the main picture with five scenes in the life of Mary; Birth and Marriage, the Visitation, the Adoration of the Magi, Presentation at the temple and her death. 

To the modern world the story of the annunciation is as difficult as the nativity is to understand but the symbolism of hope is as strong as ever for this period of festivity at such a difficult time for the world.

So, finally, thank you all for supporting my blog for another year, and once again, I wish you and yours a Very Happy Christmas and Peaceful New Year.