Image & Narrative, Vol 12, No 4 (2011) 4 Rephrased, Relocated, Repainted: visual anachronism as a narrative device
Gyöngyvér Horváth
Abstract (E): When Carlo Crivelli placed the scene of The Annunciation (1486, National Gallery, London) in the Renaissance town of Ascoli, dressed the humbled Mary in the latest fashion, and included the intervening Saint Emidius, the patron saint of the city, he created a visual analogy of what Aelred of Rievaulx, a Cistercian monk had advised to his readers three centuries earlier: “First enter the room of blessed Mary (…) wait there for the arrival of the angel, so that you may see him as he comes in, hear him as he utters his greeting, and so, filled with amazement and rapt out of yourself, greet your most sweet Lady together with the angel.” Both the painting, with its updated 15th century stage, and the text, with the appeal to join, created the atmosphere of presentness in order to encourage active participation in the biblical event. Crivelli’s ahistorical rendering of the story uses multiplied temporal and diegetic levels, and can be best described by the phenomenon of visual anachronism, an effective narrative strategy still used by such contemporary artists as Cindy Sherman or Adi Nes. This essay will examine the phenomenon of visual anachronism and its role in narrative understanding. This text will argue that there is a difference in the narrative perception between the ‘that-time’ and the present-day viewer, and in both cases it depends on the beholder’s time experience.
Abstract (F): Lorsque Crivelli situait son Annonciation (1486, National Gallery, Londres) dans le paysage contemporain de la ville d'Ascoli, représentait la Vierge dans des habits d'époque et donnait une place à l'intervention de Saint Emidius, le patron de la ville, il créait l'équivalent visuel de ce que le moine cistercien, Aelred de Rievaulx, avait conseillé de faire à ses lecteurs trois siècles plus tôt: "Entrez d'abord dans la chambre de la Vierge bénie (...), attendez l'arrivée de l'ange pour que vous le voyiez au moment de son entrée, écoutez-le quand il prononce son salut, puis, émerveillé et comme sorti de vous-même, saluez votre douce Mère en même temps que l'ange." Tant le tableau, avec son décor moderne du 15e siècle, que le texte, qui invite à se joindre à l'événement, suscitent une atmosphère de présence qui encourage une participation active à l'événement biblique. Crivelli opte pour une représentation modernisée de l'histoire qui s'appuie sur une multiplicité de niveaux temporels et diégétiques et que l'on peut fort bien décrire à l'aide du concept d'anachronisme visuel, une stratégie narrative très efficace qu'utilisent toujours des artistes contemporains comme Cindy Sherman ou Adi Nes. Cet article se propose d'analyser le phénomène de l'anachronisme visuel
Image & Narrative, Vol 12, No 4 (2011) 5 et son rôle dans la compréhension du récit. Il voudrait démontrer qu'il existe une différence dans la perception narrative de "ce temps-là" et le spectateur contemporain, et que dans les deux cas la différence s'explique par la manière dont le spectateur concerné vit le temps.
Keywords: Anachronism, Crivelli, experience, Renaissance, presentness
According to St Luke (1, 26-38), the Annunciation took place in the town of Nazareth in Galilee. Gabriel, the angel of God, visited Mary and informed her about the Incarnation. In a short conversation Gabriel explained the miraculous manner of Christ’s conception and foretold the birth of the child named Jesus, who, according to prophecy, will bring the eternal kingdom onto Earth. The biblical text is brief yet substantial. There is no description of any specific details of the scene.
Having studied the iconography of the Annunciation in fourteenth and fifteenth century painting, David M Robb considers its basic structural elements to be almost constant: “the Virgin is seated, in the act of reading or interrupted by the angel kneeling before her. They are thus more or less alike if they are judged by the iconographic rules applicable to earlier art. But the settings all differ.” (Robb 480). Carlo Crivelli’s Ascoli Annunciation from 1486 (The Annunciation with Saint Emidius, London, National Gallery) roughly follows Robb’s scheme: the kneeling Mary is depicted in her chamber at a prayer-desk, Gabriel approaches from the left. The humble gestures of Mary’s hand and her pose suggest that the conversation has already finished and the Virgin is ready to conceive: from above, the dove of the Holy Spirit arrives, entering the Virgin’s chamber through a small hole in the entablature. What makes Crivelli’s Annunciation interesting is the setting, which Robb notes to be a variable (480). Crivelli, like many of his contemporaries, took advantage of the indeterminacy of the Biblical passage on this point. The stage is designed to be the contemporary town of Ascoli inhabited by local citizens. These are dressed in the latest fashion, as are Gabriel and the Virgin. Not only are the citizens of Ascoli eyewitnesses to the Annunciation, the intimacy of the scene is further disturbed by St Emidius, patron of Ascoli, who holds a model of the city.
Thomas Tolley characterises the citizens, their contemporary costumes and the presence of St Emidius in Crivelli’s painting as “extra-narrative elements”. In fact, the citizens and especially St Emidius are not extradiegetic, as Tolley thinks. As I will argue, they are the
Image & Narrative, Vol 12, No 4 (2011) 6 most important constitutive elements of the narrative, not of the story of the Annunciation, but of the story Crivelli offers to us. Indeed, these pictorial elements clearly indicate that the Biblical episode has been re-narrated and fully reinterpreted. The key to this new interpretation is the actualisation of the Annunciation; the free rendering of the temporal layers constitutes an intentional anachronism. Anachronism is used here as a narrative device to reframe and relocate the religious scene. In the religious paintings of Renaissance Italy, as I will argue, anachronisms were often used visually to historicise biblical, that is, textual narratives.
The history and function of the Ascoli Annunciation
As is frequently the case, the story of Carlo Crivelli’s painting and the story that it represents are not separable.1
Pictorial signs of presentness
The Ascoli Annunciation was commissioned in 1486 for the church of the Santissima Annunziata in Ascoli Piceno to commemorate an important event in the chronicle of the city. Ascoli had requested a kind of self-government from Pope Sixtus IV in 1481. The letter conveying that this had been granted reached the town on 25 March 1482, the day of the feast of Annunciation. This day now became a double feast: of the Annunciation and of Ascoli’s special privilege, the Libertas Ecclesiastica. This ‘Freedom under the Church’ was a newly constructed category, a special right that gave Ascoli a certain freedom, the right to self-determination regarding internal civic issues, although the city remained under the papal throne. Celebrating the new status of the town two paintings were ordered, both with the theme of the Annunciation. The first is painted by a Crivelli-follower Pietro Alemanno in 1484, and was hung in the Chapel of the Town Hall. A second commission, indicating the growing importance of the privilege, is the one by Crivelli. We know that from the first anniversary an annual procession went on to the Church of the Santissima Annunziata, so Crivelli’s altarpiece had both a civic and religious commitment and had an important role in the constitution of local Ascoli identity as well.
There are many features in Crivelli’s altarpiece that refer to the events and environment of the contemporary Ascoli. First, there is the painted inner frame below the scene bearing the inscription LIBERTAS ECCLESIASTICA, referring directly to the grant of 1482.
The inscription is, on the right, accompanied by the coat of arms of the city of Ascoli. In the middle appears the arms of Innocent VIII, Sixtus IV’s successor as overlord of Ascoli, who was in office when the painting was completed, and on the left are the arms of Prospero
Image & Narrative, Vol 12, No 4 (2011) 7 Caffarelli, Bishop of Ascoli. The painting also carries Crivelli’s signature and the date of its completion (1486).
Another sign of contemporaneity is the presence of St Emidius, referring to the local legend that the privilege was granted through his intercession. Emidius or Emygdius was an early Christian martyr and also Bishop of Ascoli; he later became a patron saint of the city, protecting it from plague, earthquake and war: “The martyrs were fellow human beings who, precisely because of their death, now enjoyed intimacy with God. And through that intimacy came their power to intercede with God on behalf of their devotees.” (Marshall 493). In Crivelli’s painting Emidius is acting accordingly, although he is not actually interceding with God, but with the God-mother, the Virgin Mary, through Gabriel. Emidius holds a model of the town in his hands which makes it explicit that his presence here is as an advocate for the city, a depositary of the local community’s trust.
There is a seemingly minor episode, which both visually and thematically is related to the main scene, yet it can also be regarded as a consequence of it. Gabriel’s delivery of the divine message to Mary is referenced in a mise-en-abyme motif above the main scene. On the vertical axis, right above Gabriel’s head at the top of the arch, the notary of Ascoli, Antonio Benincasa, can be seen (Lightbown 342). In front of him lies an open book, indicating that he, like Mary, has been interrupted by a messenger. Benincasa is shown receiving the letter in which the Pope informs the city of its new privilege. This episode has a crucial role in the understanding of the visual re-narration of the story of the Annunciation, as will be shown later.
The presence of Franciscan monks is another pictorial element referring to the town’s contemporary history. Franciscan monks stand at the top of the staircase opposite Mary’s house, almost level with the hole in the rim where the Holy Ghost is entering the chamber. Apart from Emidius, the Franciscans are the closest eye-witnesses to the scene. There are good historical reasons for the significance given to them pictorially. First, the Santissima Annunziata, for which Crivelli’s altarpiece was painted, was a Franciscan church. Secondly, Sixtus IV, formerly Francesco della Rovere, who granted Ascoli the Libertas Ecclesiastica, was a Franciscan friar prior to becoming pope. Furthermore, the Marian cult had a special interest for both the Franciscans and Sixtus IV (Goffen 228-229).
Finally, and most obviously, the entire mise-en-scène provided by Crivelli is contemporary Renaissance (Lightbown 333-344). The style of Mary’s house, the street scene with the citizens of Ascoli dressed according to the latest fashion and all the details of the urban environment are quattrocento. Of all the elements within the picture that emphasise
Image & Narrative, Vol 12, No 4 (2011) 8 present time, this is the most striking. It is thus the main constituent of the diegetic realm. Crivelli is specific not only about the domestic interior where the message is delivered to Mary, but also about geographical placement in general. The structure of the Virgin’s house follows contemporary Italian Renaissance architecture; it is similar to the two-storey building in Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation (Lightbown 333). The decoration of the house is also typically Renaissance. Furthermore, Crivelli’s version of the Annunciation, both in terms of its general composition (which is opened up toward the beholder) and its inner frame (the stone ledge) clearly foregrounds its stage-like nature. These elements strengthen the beholder’s feeling that she or he, when looking at the Annunciation, sees it happening in quattrocento Ascoli.
Temporal anachronism as a visual phenomenon
Evidently, many features in Crivelli’s painting refer to the contemporary, however, one still does not expect the Annunciation to take place in a quattrocento environment or to be witnessed by Franciscan monks. In narrative theory such a temporal admixture, incoherence or inconsistency – the placing of an ancient story into a modern environment (or vice versa) – is best described by the concept of visual anachronism. Annette and Jonathan Barnes have studied anachronism as a general cultural phenomenon, and crystallised a set of definitions for such phenomena:
Something is an anachronism or anachronistic if and only if it implies (1) the ascription of "F" to a at t, where
(2) "F" is not of a sort to hold of anything at t, and
(3) "F" is of a sort to hold of something at a time other than t. (258)
This suggests that the Ascoli Annunciation is anachronistic, since the event of the Annunciation ("F") happens to the Virgin Mary (a) in ancient times and in the town of Nazareth (time other than t), so it does not pertain to the Virgin Mary in fifteenth-century Ascoli (at t).
It is important to note three things here. First, for the anachronism to work with the Barneses’ definition, a specific date is needed, and this date needs to be fixed. When examining an anachronistic event, object or person, all other dates, or events with dates, should be compared to this fixed date. However, if this date is not implied by the context of the work of art – be it a novel, a film or a painting – this date may be merely optional.
Second, what is anachronistic in a picture, and what is not, does not necessarily correspond with the division between diegetic and extradiegetic pictorial realms. For example, in Crivelli’s painting, the Franciscans and the Virgin belong to the same diegetic (and
Image & Narrative, Vol 12, No 4 (2011) 9 temporal) world. However, in any reasonable verbal representation, they would have to belong to different temporal layers. Crivelli placed the Franciscans in the picture precisely to enable them to witness the Annunciation. Thus these, otherwise different, diegetic realms of the verbal are fused into one in the visual. Furthermore, there exists another, extradiegetic level in the altarpiece that is presented by the inner frame, where the coats of arms are placed. These elements are clearly not part of the scene where the Annunciation is represented, as they are not visible either to the Franciscans or to the Virgin. So, the inner frame forms another diegetic layer. To make the existing painterly realms more complex, such elements as the signature and the date in the lower zone of the columns (which otherwise belong to the first diegetic level), are clearly extradiegetic elements if understood from the viewpoint of the Virgin or the Franciscans. These, just as the trompe l’oeil elements in the foreground, belong to the level of the inner frame.
Third, anachronisms in the visual realm are usually generated on more than one level, partly due to the narrative density of the depicted events and also because of the reciprocity between the events and their setting; or, more generally stated, because of the possible ambiguity of the reference points. As shown above, from the viewpoint of the Virgin and the Annunciation, both the quattrocento mise-en-scène and the presence of St Emidius are anachronistic. From the quattrocento cityscape in general, or in particular from the viewpoint of the Ascoli notary receiving the papal message, it is anachronistic to be simultaneously witnessing the Annunciation and seeing the town’s patron saint actively intervening in this scene. Naturally, the same can be said when one takes St Emidius as a reference point. Consequently, the Barneses’ formula described above can be applied here in at least three different ways (258). Anachronism is actually tripled in Crivelli’s painting, theoretically, each temporal layer is relativised. In Crivelli’s altarpiece, the quattrocento setting is the painterly device that suggests the primary temporal level and establishes the principal narrative. However, this could have been achieved by purely compositional means as well.
Crivelli’s Ascoli Annunciation is special as it gives an almost complete inventory of the methods with which anachronism can be achieved visually.2
2 A different concept of Renaissance anachronism was proposed by Nagel and Wood in 2005. The “principle of
substitution” (405) explains why certain works were regarded as antique when they were the last in a long sequence of replicas. Their idea is developed further in their new book Anachronic Renaissance (2010), which is not yet known in detail to the present author at the time of the submission of this article.
Before moving to other relevant examples, it is useful to list the most common painterly strategies for setting visual anachronisms into play. All of these are here related to the main event of a narrative picture.
Image & Narrative, Vol 12, No 4 (2011) 10 (1) Architectural styles or elements referring to the present (or any other) historical period, which do not coincide with the actual time of the event.
(2) Figures dressed in costumes belonging to a different historical time(s) than that of the event.
(3) Referencing the contemporary or any other time with heraldic elements (coats of arms, shields, imprese).
(4) Including objects not yet existent in the era of the event.
(5) Including events that are not simultaneous with the main action, but rather in the distant past or future.
(6) Including eye-witnesses, such as patrons, donors or other historical figures not synchronic with the main event.
(7) Characters (including painters themselves) depicted in the guise of some other figure (mostly historical, biblical or mythological).
Anachronistic settings in quattrocento Italian painting
In the painterly tradition of the Italian Renaissance, the mise-en-scène provided by Crivelli is not an isolated case; it is the norm rather than an exception. David M Robb, in his thorough study of the iconography of early Renaissance Annunciation panels, also examines the question of the setting. He lists three types of architectural settings and relates them to certain geographical areas. The first is employed in Italy and is either a portico type or an open space, the second is the “ecclesiastical interior type”, the third is what Robb calls “a bourgeois interior, a room in a Flemish house”, as seen in the Mérode altarpiece (500). From this it is clear that Crivelli is not alone in updating the scenery – and thus the context – of the Biblical event. All Robb’s examples are contemporary, and this suggests that such settings were commonly used for Annunciation scenes in the period.
Trecento Italian fresco and panel paintings provide some early examples of this custom, both in terms of general scenery, architectural detailing and costumes. Giotto’s Annunciation in the Scrovegni Chapel (1306, Padova) has been thoroughly researched; it deploys the setting and costumes of contemporary liturgical drama (Jacobus passim). Turning to early quattrocento Italian examples, it seems that whenever the setting is clearly defined it is contemporary. Fra Angelico’s early panel of the Annunciation (1433-34, Cortona, Museo Diocesano) stages the scene in an open portico. The narrative is made quite complex by setting up typological relations, evoked in the sculpted effigy of the prophet Isaiah and the Expulsion scene in the background. Fra Filippo Lippi also produced a number of anachronistic Annunciation scenes. Examples from the 1440s certainly belong to this
Image & Narrative, Vol 12, No 4 (2011) 11 tradition. They are staged within rich architectural settings decorated with Renaissance ornaments. For example, the one in Rome (The Annunciation with two Kneeling Donors, ca. 1440, Galleria Nazionale D’Arte Antica) shows two contemporary characters witnessing the scene, the donors Folco Portinari and Folgonaccio. Further examples are Piero della Francesca’s fresco of the Annunciation (ca. 1455, Arezzo, San Francesco), which reveals his classical tastes, or Ghirlandaio’s Annunciation fresco in the Tornabuoni Chapel (1486-90, Florence, Santa Maria Novella), where an unmistakeably Tuscan landscape can be seen through the double-arched Renaissance painted window.
It is worth noting two examples from Venice since Crivelli is most closely related to this painterly tradition. Both are specific because their architectural settings echo the architecture of the churches where they were originally placed. The Church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Venice used to house an organ shutter with the subject of the Annunciation, now attributed to Giovanni Bellini (ca. 1500, Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia). The Annunciation scene is set in a corner where the walls are covered with colourful painted marble slabs:
[a] similar sensitivity to the glowing polychromy of the marbles had been displayed in the original organ shutters, now in the Accademia where the Annunciation scene is set in a marbled interior decorated with polychrome panels like those of the church itself. (Howard 691)
The second Venetian example is definitely by Giovanni Bellini, his well-known San Giobbe Altarpiece (ca. 1487, Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia). Although it depicts a Sacra Conversazione, not an Annunciation, it is still the best example of how the real architecture of the church and the fictive architecture of the scenery could be made to interact in the late fifteenth-century Venetian tradition. The architectural setting of the altarpiece consists of a coffered vault supported by richly decorated all’antica columns. They serve a very similar role to the inner frame of Crivelli’s painting, that of imitating decorated carved stone work. The painted architecture of the San Giobbe Altarpiece is contemporary to such an extent that it elongates and frames the real architecture of the church wall. At the same time, it opens up the wall to an imaginary scene of the Enthroned Virgin flanked by saints who were especially venerated in the church.
Anachronistic settings do not limit themselves to Annunciation scenes. More explicit landmarks than in Crivelli’s altarpiece can be seen in the fresco cycle depicting episodes from the life of Saint Francis painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio in the Sassetti Chapel (1483-86, Florence, Santa Trinita). The episode of the Resuscitation of the Notary’s Son:
Image & Narrative, Vol 12, No 4 (2011) 12 . . . occurred near the Piazza San Marco in Rome, whereas in the painting the background is Florence. The view shows specifically the piazza outside the Church of Santa Trinita. This transfer of locale, moreover, is matched in the scene directly above, where the Confirmation of the Rule, which took place before the pope in Rome, is represented in the fresco as happening in Florence, near the Piazza della Signoria. In fact, these localized settings develop the cityscape conceits in the altarpiece below and are the final link in defining the secondary axis in the chapel’s overall organization. (Lavin 205)
Following the relocation, the new setting is contemporary urban Florence. For example, the triple arches of the Loggia dei Lanzi appear in the background of the Confirmation scene, though it had not yet been built when the confirmation of the Franciscan order was bestowed by Pope Honorius III in 1223. A double consideration lies behind the choice of the new location: it has an allusion both to the power of Florence as the new Rome and to the chronicle of the Sassetti family. As is clear from these examples, relocated events and new contemporary urban settings appear frequently in quattrocento Italian painting.
The last category in the inventory listing painterly anachronisms, the depiction of contemporary figures in the guise of another, seems to be the least frequent case of all. In this period the ‘another’figure, who is replaced by a contemporary person, is usually a biblical one. There are different views as to who exactly is portrayed in the figures of the kings and their entourage in Benozzo Gozzoli’s Procession of the Magi fresco at the Medici Chapel in Florence (1459, Palazzo Medici-Riccardi), however, many scholars agree that there are allusions to contemporary figures and events (Crum 403, especially footnote 1). The procession probably commemorates the 1439 event of the Council of Florence with the portraits of the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Paleologus and the Eastern Patriarch Joseph II. According to another view the patrons, the members of the Medici family, are portrayed among the protagonists. The cycle clearly operates with iconographic flexibility, as Roger J Crum suggests (416), and in this way bears double historicity.
Several similar examples could be adduced, where the depicted characters or settings share the ‘that time’ beholder’s space and time. The late fifteenth-century examples given here, which, as in Crivelli’s altarpiece, use Renaissance architecture, ornaments or characters, actually mark the summit of a long and consistent tradition. This tradition would be seriously modified by the Counter Reformation, when for the first time the Church urged painters to be more historically accurate when representing religious subjects.
Image & Narrative, Vol 12, No 4 (2011) 13 It is time to address the question of how these anachronisms affect our understanding of Crivelli’s work. What story is it that is being told in the Ascoli altarpiece? How is the Annunciation re-narrated here and how is this visual tale constructed by pictorial means?
In the Ascoli Annunciation, by his inclusion of certain episodes and several anachronistic details, Crivelli makes clear that the correspondence between the verbal tale and its visual representation is not obvious. Instead, a new visual tale is invented, distinct from the textual narrative. Crivelli’s Annunciation belongs not only to biblical Nazareth but, due to the architecture it encloses, the costumes, the coats of arms, the view of the street and the ‘eye-witnessing’ citizens of the town, it also belongs to Renaissance Ascoli. A multiple temporality is achieved by applying anachronistic features. The re-narrated story depicted is about the delivery of a message and what preceded it. However, the content of the message is not the arrival of the Redeemer as told in the Bible, but rather the arrival of a privilege, Libertas Ecclesiastica, with crucial importance for the history of Ascoli. In this new story the main role is played not by Gabriel or Mary, but by St Emidius, who interrupts Gabriel to intercede with Mary. The character of St Emidius thus turns the well-known plot of the Annunciation in a completely different direction. An intervention takes place in the original storyline. A new character, not recorded in any of the previous visual or written versions of the event, steps into the scene and affects the course of events in a radical way. St Emidius stands for an intrusion: the universal course of Redemption is interrupted and the chain of events is distracted by local historical and political interest. This intrusion indicates the moment when the original story arrives at a crossroad. A certain interference or ramification happens here. Before the intrusion, the Annunciation followed the Biblical storyline with Gabriel and the Virgin, but the appearance of Emidius conjoins the Biblical and the contemporary. With his presence, the viewer’s attention is diverted away from the religious content and is led into Ascoli’s history. Let us call this phenomenon ‘narrative ramification’.
In general, narrative ramification can be defined as a radical step taken by a character in the story to change the course of events. This intervention results in the revision of the storyline, often there is a change in the ending of the tale, an altered conclusion. Transmedial representations of a story easily turn into ramifications, for example, when transforming a visual tale into verbal, or the other way round. These ramifications are intentional and purposeful, and have nothing to do with the possible limitations of any of the media involved. The reason Crivelli’s storytelling deserves more attention is that his character, St Emidius, the new protagonist, is not only present, but he also intervenes. From a narratological point of view, this makes for a very rich and very unusual tale. Interventions, especially radical
Image & Narrative, Vol 12, No 4 (2011) 14 interventions into the biblical narratives are rare. Art, it seems, had to reach the post-religious era of the twentieth century to be permitted the slightly impudent lightness in the treatment of religious narratives, evident, for example, in Max Ernst’s deliberately scandalous painting, The Blessed Virgin Chastises the Infant Jesus Before Three Witnesses: A.B., P.E, and the Artist (1926, Cologne, Ludwig Museum).
The story of the Ascoli Annunciation
In Crivelli’s actualisation, there is one episode which carries special significance. This is the episode with Antonio Benincasa at the top of the arch, where he receives the papal letter. The main motif of the picture, the delivering of the message by Gabriel to the Virgin, is repeated as a mise-en-abyme motif just above the main episode. It is a repeated thematic unit, a microscene, and it revises the act of delivering, receiving and accepting the message, but now in a smaller scale. From the notary’s costume, it is clear that he is an important and dignified person in the history of the town, as is the Virgin in the biblical story (Lightbown 342). Benincasa has just been interrupted by the young papal messenger, just as the Virgin is interrupted by the salutation of Gabriel. The term mise-en-abyme is used for a motif in a narrative which is “referring to any part of a work that resembles the larger work in which it occurs” (Nelles 312-313). The term was coined by the writer André Gide in 1893, and in its original sense it described the visual effect of a formal repetition, such as that used in heraldry, where an enclosing major form contains the same form but on a smaller scale. In painting, the mise-en-abyme motif is primarily identified as mirror reflections, for example, in Van Eyck’s Arnolfini double portrait.
This episodic mise-en-abyme motif is applied by Crivelli as a device of narrative expansion. Through ramification it opens a new storyline. The ‘accidental’ historical coincidence that brought Sixtus IV’s letter to Ascoli on 25 March, exactly on the feast of the Annunciation, appears visually as a response in a ‘cause and effect’ sequence, where the cause is the intercession of the figure of St Emidius. This is strengthened both by compositional and thematic means: the consequence is carefully positioned in the pictorial space, it appears on the vertical axis, just above the cause, the scene with Gabriel and Emidius. The fine linear perspective constructed by Crivelli is subordinated to this narrative unit: the vanishing point is placed exactly on the same axis. The intercession and its consequence, the arrival of the papal message, is not the only thing threaded on this vertical line. There, one also finds the golden whirl of clouds and cherubim indicating the divine presence. Any visually acute viewer, whether of the present or of the fifteenth century, should be able to link the two episodes conjoined by the composition with the third, the highest power. Thus we are to understand a
Image & Narrative, Vol 12, No 4 (2011) 15 visual suggestion, namely that the cause and its consequence, the intercession of St Emidius in the lower zone and the symbolic act of obtaining the grant in the upper, both have divine mandate. This corresponds with Ron Moshe’s point on this particular narrative device: ‘Mise en abyme is also a rebellion against scale in the quantitative sense. It is a small part carrying “as much” significance as the whole that contains it.’ (Moshe 430)
All the episodes and elements studied here – Emidius’s intercession, the updated environment, the extradiegetic elements of the painting – suggest that the visual story is a radical reinterpretation of the biblical Annunciation. Crivelli’s version celebrates the freedom of the city, which is seen as the fulfilment of the Annunciation, and thus it represents civic ambition. In its time, it was a large and expensive altarpiece, accessible to the general public. It most likely played a role in contemporary liturgical activity. So, with this altarpiece the citizens of Ascoli could actively experience not only the religious narrative, but, with the help of the anachronistic details, they were offered an historicised, retold story of the Annunciation.
Anachronism as a narrative device
The relationship of time and narration has been addressed in many forms in the domain of the visual: as the idea of punctum temporis, as moments in episodic narration, as the time of perception and contemplation. Pictorial anachronisms have never previously been studied in a narrative context. As I argue, pictorial anachronisms, at least as they were rendered in late quattrocento Italy, would contribute profoundly to the narrative effect of paintings. This was a strategy that enabled painters, patrons and spectators to make religious narratives seem actual, efficient and present. Anachronism, as it is seen in Crivelli’s altarpiece, promotes present time perception and encourages believers to see biblical stories not primarily as ancient historical events but stories that are related to their personal history or personal faith. It is a device for re-narrating, reinterpreting, and further, historicising the religious narrative.
The greatest achievement of Crivelli’s altarpiece is the ramification, the shift from religious to historical narratives. Jörg Rüsen specified three qualities that characterise historical narratives. An historical narrative operates with memory, it “mobilizes the experience of past time”; then it “serves to establish the identity of its authors and listeners”; and finally establishes continuity between the past, present and future, in order to make the present understandable and the future imaginable (Rüsen 89). In spite of being primarily a religious object, commissioned for a local church by the community of Ascoli, each of Rüsen’s three qualities is valid for Crivelli’s Annunciation.
Image & Narrative, Vol 12, No 4 (2011) 16 Anachronism is a device to achieve temporally complex painterly structures. It covers the use of different signs to evoke another temporal realm, different from the main ‘reality’ of the artwork. As the Barneses note:
chronological inaccuracies could be used for some artistic purposes. If this purpose is clear, the obvious anachronism can be non-vicious. In some cases they might be virtuous. If the artist was primarily interested in painting a visually rich, structurally complex work, then the presence of obvious anachronisms might not be vicious. (Barnes and Barnes 259)
In the realm of visual storytelling it is better characterised as an elegant painterly device to compress and overlap different periods, eras, or styles. Crivelli’s rendering of the biblical story showed how pictorial time is able to relate the sacred and the dramatic time, an effective narrative strategy still used in contemporary arts. It is certainly clear that visual narratives set up a different experience of time from that of written narratives. Verbal narratives are better at separating temporal layers. Images, as the phenomenon of anachronism shows, are better at fusing different moments or temporal layers (they can work simultaneously, proleptically or analeptically). In some periods, warnings against such practices were formulated within art theory and this, in itself, is evidence of widespread application. It must be concluded that images are able to span not only short intervals but long periods of time and that they can also fuse different locations.
Works Cited
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Dr. Gyöngyvér Horváth obtained her PhD from the University of East Anglia, School of World Art Studies and Museology, Norwich. Her research is concerned with the theory and historiography of visual narratives. After working as an Assistant Curator of contemporary art for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile, recently Horváth joined the Theory Institute of the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest, as an Assistant Professor.
