Things (un)seen: analogism and naturalism in an Annunciation scene (c. 1470)

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a theoretical perspective for studying the viewing methods of early modern paintings. Analysis of the Annunciation, an altarpiece attributed to Francesco del Cossa (c. 1470), along with an ontology of images, will lead to three hypotheses that reassess current interpretations. First, the altarpiece introduced a metarelation between words and things that had as a direct effect the First Cause indirectly witnessed under theological doctrines of causality. Second, its patrons, Franciscans of the Osservanza in Bologna, consumed the image amid a public spirituality nourished by Marian cults that enacted mystical links between the microcosm and the macrocosm. Third, the work’s naturalistic codes, based on an imperial viewpoint and in the perspective and the rational disposition of the scene, were aligned with a system of analogist inferences, which resulted in a hybrid realism.

Palavras-chave:
ontologia das imagens; Anunciação; Francesco del Cossa