Andy Warhol Details of Renaissance Paintings (Leonardo Da Vinci, The Annunciation, 1472) (F & S II.320-323)

The third portfolio in the artist’s Details of Renaissance Paintings series, Warhol’s reworking of Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Annunciation, originally painted in 1472, transforms a religious scene into a secular, Pop Art landscape. For its appropriation of one of the earliest paintings by one of the most famous artists in all of history, this screenprint is remarkable in its undertaking.  

Da Vinci’s original painting depicts Angiel Gabriel kneeling before the Virgin Mary: as evidenced by its title, Gabriel is announcing to Mary that she will conceive the Son of God. Gabriel holds the Madonna Lily (a white lily), symbolising both the Virgin and the city of Florence. Of all figurative aspects of Da Vinci’s painting, Warhol has only kept the Gabriel’s outstretched finger, which is visible at the very bottom left corner in his screenprint, and the Virgin’s hand placed upon the lectern. The all-important Lily, with its latent symbolism, is omitted: the Pop artist instead reveals two hands appearing to reach out for eachother against a landscape with a palace in the background, a move that points to the intimacy of the Biblical encounter. Warhol’s reduction of the original scene to purely its surroundings in fact dissects the Renaissance notion of vanishing points: only the horizon line is visible, a careful geometric line whereby Gabriel’s hand coordinates with Mary’s line of vision. 

da Vinci was just twenty years of age when he painted The Annunciation, an apprentice of Andrea del Verrocchio. The subject of the annunciation was a popular one in Renaissance painting and one sees the eagerness of the young artist; in Warhol’s interpretation, there is a formal reversal of importance in subject. The artist has lifted, removed and cropped the most obviously Divine aspects of da Vinci’s monumental painting and given the mere gesture of hands – disembodied from their angelic figure, a central platform. It is an exceptional talent of Warhol’s to be able to effectively steal from all manner of resources - newspapers, publicity stills and in this instance Renaissance art, whilst leaving his own, indelible mark.