Eikón Imago (Sep 2014)
Light Symbolism in Gentile da Fabriano’s Vatican Annunciation
Abstract
Gentile da Fabriano’s Annunciation in the Vatican Pinacoteca is one of the clearest and most interesting visualizations of a famous metaphor from Medieval hymn literature that compares Mary’s hymen to the glass of a window. The painting uniquely combines three elements: rays of light, a Gothic tracery window, and the shape of the window impressed on the Virgin’s body. Gentile’s painting is the culmination of a development in Tuscan art that can be traced back at least until about 1370. This makes it part of an Italian tradition of visualizing the so-called ut vitrum metaphor that must antedate analogous examples from Flemish art.
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