Dec 11 2008
Advent 2008
Although its the middle of Advent, this week is the first time it’s felt like Christmas is approaching. It’s not because I unpacked the Christmas tree. I haven’t. And the Nativity is still in its box until this coming weekend, when a few friends are coming for nog-chugging and tree-trimming.
Partly it’s because this workweek is book-ended by Marian feast days: the Immaculate Conception and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The latter drives certain Christians up the wall, especially when they see the “worship” of Mary by Mexican immigrants. (Funny how Shakespeare used “pray” as “ask/petition”, but nowadays it’s a synonym for “worship”.)
But the feeling of Advent also came over me when I took my students to the Detroit Institute of Arts. The big draw was the “From Monet to Dalí” exhibit on loan from Cleveland (including many works by Picasso and Van Gogh’s gorgeous The Plane Trees).
As usual, a couple of my students fell in love with Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry Murals. But the universal crowd-pleaser was a temporary installation. In the courtyard before Rivera Court, long strands of small mirrors had been hung from the ceiling for the holidays. They sparkled in the sunlight from the windows, casting circles of light that drifted over the walls. A couple of my students were so enchanted that they lay down on the floor in order to take photos from below.
It was certainly pretty, but it didn’t strike me as particularly Christmassy (to use a teenager’s adjective). No, what put me in the Advent mood was when a chaperone and I were walking through the European wing and came upon Fra Angelico’s Annunciatory Angel and The Virgin Annunciate. Two Muslim women were studying the paintings, and the bright images made a sharp contrast to their dark clothing and the dull colors of stone and metal artwork in the room.
I’ve seen this image every Advent, mostly on Christmas cards. This year it also appears in Christianity Today’s Advent calendar. But reproductions don’t do it justice. The gold leaf sparkles so that the Gabriel shines and Mary’s hair is a golden mass of light. She is looking down, thinking. In person, you realize why this image is a great work of art and not a seasonal cliché.
That’s why it reminded me of Advent.
That’s what Advent does: It makes you pay attention to real Beauty. Christmas is not a story that you dust off once a year and display, like timeworn ornaments and the bent metal star. God in all His infinite power came to live among us, so we could know Him.
Anunciatory Angel is one of ”The Director’s Dozen”, as chosen by Graham W. J. Beal. For the complete list, click on http://www.dia.org/the_collection/directors_picks/index.asp
For more about Fra Angelico in general, and Annunciatory Angel and The Virgin Annunciate in particular (including a photo), please see The Christian Science Monitor’s article on a 2005 exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1221/p18s02-hfes.html
