Description
This early famous work by the young Renaissance master, The Annunciation, is not yet fully representative of Leonardo da Vinci’s characteristic manner or style. The composition follows a centuries-old model with the angel on the left, the Virgin on the right and a lectern in the middle; the scene is set within an architectural frame that opens onto a landscape. The kneeling angel is splendidly youthful with a high forehead, stylized wings, rich garments and a lily. The Virgin, surprised while reading, raises her hand in astonishment and displays a finely featured face that some have described as cold. Her pose, with her knees evenly extended and draped in broad, flexible folds, gives her a strongly monumental presence.
In the work Mary sits on a paved terrace and reads at a richly decorated desk carved from marble. She expresses surprise at the visit of the young archangel Gabriel, who tells her that she will be the mother of the Son of God.
The painting shows a flourishing enclosed garden in front of what appears to be a Renaissance palace, evoking the hortus conclusus that alludes to Mary’s purity. The archangel Gabriel kneels before the Virgin and offers her a lily. The Virgin responds from her seat behind a lectern where she had been reading. Leonardo places this traditional religious subject in a worldly natural setting. The angel has a solid corporeality, suggested by his shadow on the grass and the folds of his clothing, which seem to reflect studies from life. His wings are also based on those of a powerful bird of prey.
An extraordinary twilight light shapes the scene and accentuates the dark forms of the distant trees, dominated by the mixed colors much loved by the artist. The architectural elements are drawn according to the rules of perspective, with a central vanishing point. Some anomalies can be found in the figure of the Virgin, whose right arm appears too long—perhaps a reflection of Leonardo’s early investigations into optics, which may have taken into account a lateral viewpoint (from the right)—and low, owing to the painting’s original location, which stood above a side altar in a church.
The painting was taken to the Uffizi in 1867 from the church of San Bartolomeo a Monteoliveto, on the outskirts of Porta San Frediano in Florence; nothing is known about its original location or who commissioned it. The Annunciation is generally considered one of Leonardo’s youthful works, painted while he was still working in Andrea del Verrocchio’s workshop. The master borrows a design by Verrocchio—the form of the lectern—inspired by the tomb of Piero the Gouty in the church of San Lorenzo, Florence.
The Annunciation ranks No. 57 on the list of famous paintings