The Announcement Annunciations and Beyond

The Annunciation: a specific event recounted in the Bible and commonly represented in artworks, but also the prototype for many other announcements throughout the history of Western culture. This transhistorical volume explores the artistic and philosophical meanings of the phenomenon of announcing and proposes new readings of pictorial Annunciations from the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period – treating aspects such as witnesses, inscriptions and duplications. It also discusses visual appropriations, reenactments and echoes of the classical dispositif of the announcement to Mary in sacred and profane contexts up to the twenty-first century. Examples include a painted Renaissance ceiling decoration glorifying the state of Venice, a Jean-Luc Godard film, a video art piece by Eija-Liisa Ahtila, and a modern saint's bedroom turned into a pilgrimage site.