Focus on this artwork and discuss the Description.
The painting features the archangel Gabriel and Mary during the Annunciation. The event is narrated in Luke 1:26–38, in which Gabriel tells Mary that she will bear Jesus, the Son of God. Perhaps influenced by the fundamentalist teachings of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Tanner uses a column of light to depict Gabriel and paints Mary in peasant clothing with no halo or other discernible holy attributes. This subject treatment differs greatly from other paintings of the Annunciation, such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Ecce Ancilla Domini (1850), which a contemporary critic claimed they saw a reminder of in Tanner's The Annunciation. The room where the scene takes place is furnished with textiles, ceramics, and stone flooring—elements that would reappear in Tanner's later biblical paintings.
African Methodist Episcopal Church biblical Annunciation Dante Gabriel Rossetti Luke 1 Jesus God paintings of the Annunciation Mary Ecce Ancilla Domini Gabriel Tanner