Annunciation (14th century) by Giovanni del Biondo (attrib.)Grão Vasco National Museum
This painted image of the Annunciation, an Italian work from the second half of the 14th century, traditionally attributed to the Florentine painter Giovanni del Biondo (active from 1356 to 1398), brings an end to the narrative embodied by the various objects gathered together in this section of "Liturgy and Worship in the Late Middle Ages".
Its representational features make it emblematic of the Gothic style, but dating from towards the end of this period.
This image marks the beginnings of a transition from a predominantly symbolic figuration to a more mimetic level of representation. Whereas the angel is still placed against a conventional flat gold background...
...the Virgin is set in a schematic scenario that suggests space in depth.
In the treatment of the figures, especially through the tonal gradation of the clothing, the painter achieves an essential idea of volume and is diverging from linearity and flatness, from the naïve schematicism that represented the quintessential definition of Gothic tastes.
The studding, particularly visible in the shaping of the angel’s gold background, reveals a traditional conception, an enhancement of the painting as a materially precious object.
All these considerations should however also take into account the material reality of the work, since it is an image that has been manipulated a posteriori. In other words, it is an image that was "built" by joining together two paintings from originally autonomous supports.
By joining together two panels with semi-circular shapes at the top, through the use of a wedge that compensates for this shape and by repainting this in order to hide the join, one single painting was formed. The relatively higher position of the Virgin in relation to the angel and the differences between the respective scenographic backgrounds are the result of this manipulation.
