Fra Angelico, "Annunciation"

Fra Angelico, "Annunciation" 1438-1445. Museo di San Marco, Firenze.

This Renaissance fresco painted by Fra Angelico shows a moment which is quite crucial to the fast approaching Christmas holiday: The moment when Archangel Gabriel gave Mary a message that must have seemed quite overwhelming to her.

She is visited by an angel who either is about to tell her - or just has told her - some pretty devastating news. But she looks so calm. And her simple surroundings - the barren walls and the stool she sits on - accentuate her modest, but intent gaze. Mary and her visitor look at each other, both slightly bowing their heads, and they hold their hands in identical positions.

Even though they are situated below different arches, on each side of a column, their calm attentiveness towards each other makes them seem close. And the depth and space that is created by lines of perspective further enhance their intimacy.

Fra Angelico has created a balanced composition, where only the cell-like window far off in the back may distract us from the quiet action in the foreground. The architecture that surrounds the protagonists of this story is very similar to the architecture at the convent where Fra Angelico has painted the fresco, the San Marco Convent in Firenze. His "Annunciation" is the first painting you see as you ascend the stairs to the first floor, where the monks' cells are (many of them have beautiful frescos by Fra Angelico, as well):

Photo: roma-antica.

Fra Angelico has painted several Annunciations (most of them on panel), and in all that I have seen, Gabriel wears a similar dress made from beautiful gold adorned material.

Fra Angelico, "Annunciation", 1433, detail.

In this version Gabriel points up towards God and over towards Mary.

Fra Angelico, "Annunciation", 1433, detail. Museo Diocesano, Cortona.

And as you can see here, this earlier version does not emit the same quiet contemplative mood as the San Marco fresco does:

Fra Angelico, "Annunciation" 1438-1445. Museo di San Marco, Firenze.

Fra Angelico's depiction of this momentous moment will be my Merry Christmas post to you, and my last post this year.

***

I have had some great moments myself this year (though not quite as defining as the one Mary experienced a couple of thousand years ago...). Several of them have been about meeting people I have not seen in a long time. Thank you so much for showing up in my life again! (You know who you are:-)

Also, while talking about calmly accepting what the moment brings (like Mary does), I want to thank my beautiful yoga teacher, Kari, for making me more able to cut through the grime and experience quiet moments of physical and spiritual enlightenment.

I am so happy I started writing MOMENT/C this fall. It gives me great joy. Thank you so much for visiting, and welcome back early next year!

The Cloisters (+ David Lynch, Jonathan Franzen and celebrity minister sex...)

The Unicorn in Captivity, around 1500, The Cloisters, New York

The Trie Cloister. Capitals: Late 15th century. Fountain: Different elements from around 1500.

A page from the Limbourg Brother's Belles Heures, about 1410



The Langon Chapel. Original parts of the stonework: 12th century. (Photo: James Muspratt)




The first semester I spent in New York, I was struggling to deal with my new situation as a mediocre (at best!) dance student among so many talented dancers. But I worked hard in class, and when I was not too exhausted from that, I would explore the city by foot. I also watched dance shows and film, moved around by subway, ate my lunches in Union Square, had very little money, and lived with many different roommates in crappy apartments. - Without ever reflecting on how this move from my well organized life at my parents' house, in the outskirts of Europe, actually affected me.

I just happened to notice something very peculiar when I visited The Cloisters one crisp and beautiful autumn day.

It was not a religious experience, and I did not yet have any particular interest in the art I saw there. It must just have been that big transition from busy downtown everyday life to those quiet and beautiful surroundings on that hill way up north on Manhattan, overlooking the Hudson River.

The calm and inspired state I reached that day when I looked at the beautiful unicorn tapestries, walked through the sensuous gardens and experienced the magnificent light and sacred ambience in the different chapels, is something that I ever since then have thought of as "The Cloister Mood".


*   *   *

This blog is supposed to be about art and sometimes about poetry (and I do not want the posts to be too long for people to bother reading them), but today I feel a strong need to write a little something about sex and literature... (Feel free to stop reading right here, because the sex-part will not be particularly sensational, I'm afraid.)

Thinking about the sacred feeling I got that long time ago at The Cloisters, I would like to tell you about reading one of the Norwegian tabloids when I was in Oslo about a week ago.

I had just finished the memoir "Eat, Pray, Love", in which I found the "Pray" part most interesting (where the protagonist struggles with her meditation). And the night before I had heard David Lynch speak about meditation and creative work. He was stopping in Oslo on a book tour, at the same time as Jonathan Franzen was there to present his last novel, "Freedom". (Two very big names in such a provincial capital at the same time!)

So in that paper (which is a curious mix of gaudy tabloid with a well informed culture section), there was a piece on David Lynch ("mild and kind" - almost like a minister?), and there was one on Jonathan Franzen, who talked about the novel as salvation (not the exact term he used, though) from our busy lives that are so dense with digital information. The novel, he said, makes us sit down for long, quiet periods, and it gives us a precious chance to reflect.

But the front page of that paper - in which these two great artists put forth eternal (almost religious) values (love, beauty, centeredness, reflection) - was covered by a minister from the Church of Norway, the "celebrity minister" Einar Gelius. That day he made top news for having published a book about sex in the bible, in which he apparently hails pornography and elaborates on his private sexual preferences.

I'm all for sex, don't misunderstand. And obviously this rebel minister does not represent the Church of Norway in this case. It is just a pity that the Church of Norway does not manage to get more publicity about what it has to offer on the matters of which David Lynch and Jonathan Franzen spoke in the same paper: Love, beauty, meditation and reflection.

(... And I am aware that putting the sex-word in the heading of this post may be deemed as speculative as putting the "celebrity minister" on the front page of that paper...)