annuciaçã0_11.jpg Printmaking by Matheus Gorovitz

0n the enunciations of the Annunciation

God exists even when there it isn’t
(Guimarães Rosa, Grande Sertão: Veredas)

In Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Annunciation we observe the beginnings of the pictorial representation of space in Perspective.

The affinity between linear Perspective and the Annunciation is justified; both share the ability to reconcile the sacred and the profane, the universal and the singular, the concept and the phenomenon and nevertheless, the promise of reconciliation between soul and body preached by religion. The dichotomy is meaningful only when such terms interact. The artwork originates in this relationship.

Perspective is the finite (measurable) representation of infinity (incommensurable) and the Annunciation deals with the incarnation whose sense is given by S. Bernardino of Siena:

Incarnation is the moment in which eternity comes in time, immensity in measure, the creator in his creatures, the infigurable in time, the untellable in the tale, the ineffable in words, the uncircunscribable in place, the invisible in vision, the inaudible in sound.

In the episode of the Annunciation the consciousness of being as a person (private) and as collective being (public) is embodied through dialogue, namely the way in which in we find ourselves by finding approval and support in the relations of social interaction. Identity develops only when we learn to see ourselves in the interactive perspective of another – that is, by reflection. As Shakespeare puts it:

Cassius – Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?
Brutus – No, Cassius; for the eye sees not itself, but by reflection, by some other things
(Julius Caesar Act 1, scene 2)

As well as the linear geometric construction, Perspective is dependent on the relative position of the subject – on his point of view, (hence the polysemy: design, purpose), in the Annunciation Mary's will is sovereign and decisive:
"Let it be with me according to your word. Mary agrees with what the Angel says".

I quote the biblical account with an emphasis not on agreement, but on disagreement, in the disruption of the dialogue that is described in the Gospel of Luke in the following terms: "Then the angel departed from her."

From a plastic point of view, I subvert the harmonic composition, the subordination of the parts to a specific law – an order that comforts us; I have recourse to dissonance, the disruption of order. Given the dissonant composition we are faced with two truths that contradict each other, the impasse anguishes and motivates a positioning. In short, the primordial issue is whether God exists or not. I end by quoting Shakespeare: «But then are we in order when we are most out of order».