TODAY IS LADY DAY
The Annuciation.
Here look at these two Poussin paintings:
Two paintings of the same subject. The left hand one painted in 1655 the right hand one painted in 1657. Both pictures are of the Annuciation.
You are reminded that the enigmatic letter written by the Abbe Fouquet to his brother the Superintendent of Finance at the court of Louis XIV was written in 1656.
In the late 1620s, Nicholas Poussin produced a number of sketches of the Annunciation, culminating in the painting on the left that still survives at Chantilly. Internal evidence suggests a 15th-century influence, and the relative positions of the figures in the painting are reminiscent of those in the Aix panel, but to read anything into this would be clutching at straws.
Much more interesting is the second version of this theme, painted in 1657. The iconography is very unusual. Mary sits cross-legged like an eastern woman, her arms open wide, while the angel makes hieratic gestures rare in 17th-century Annunciations, but more common in the 15th. J. Costello (quoted by
Walter Friedlaender) is of the opinion that this painting was a design for a funeral monument to Poussin's friend and mentor Cassianio del Pozzo, an antiquarian scholar of distinction. This is a decidedly odd theme for a funeral monument, but Friedlaender offers some observations which are enlightening. Pozzo was to be buried in the Church of Sta Maria Topa Minerva, which stood on the site of an ancient sanctuary of the goddess Isis, and Friedlaender suggests that Poussin's painting combines the characteristics of three divinities - Mary, Minerva and Isis. He also observes that the posture of the female figure seems to represent the sedes sapientiae - seat of wisdom.
Poussin is known to have been a profound student of ancient myths from original sources. He often referred to Ripa's Iconologia, constantly carried Cartari's Images of the Gods with him, and embodied Neoplatonic doctrines in his paintings. (A fact not lost upon W.B. Yeats, who based the symbology of his own Neoplatonic poem, "News for the Delphic Oracle", upon the artist's Marriage of Thetis and Peleus.) Poussin's paintings contain multiple layers of meaning, often blending Pagan and Christian themes. One of the major sources of his learning was the library of Pozzo.
The Annunciation is the only late painting by Poussin that is signed and dated. It also contains a large inscription to commemorate the fact that it was painted in the reign of the Chigi Pope Alexander VII, an opponent of Cardinal Mazarin advisor to Louis XIV of France. Poussin might have been thought to have taken quite a risk when he mentioned the Pope in such a painting, but it seems that he knew exactly what he was doing.
In his reign as Pope Alexander VII put an end to Heliocentrism issue and declared the the earth was the centre of all things.
Pope Alexander VII published his Index Librorum Prohibitorum Alexandri VII Pontificis Maximi jussu editus which he prefaced with the Bull Speculatores Dominus Israel in which he explicitly attached all the previous heliocentric decrees. Although the Catholic church later allowed research into the matter of a Heliocentric solar system they have still to formerly recognise that the Earth goes around the Sun and not vice versa.
Lady Day is one human gestation period from Christmas Day hence the Annuciation. The Arch Angel Gabriel Announced that Mary was Pregnant on this day because being a Virgin how else would she know unless an angel told her
Lady Day was New Years Day right up until 1752.
The Basilica at Notre Dame de l'Epine at Châlons-en-Champagne was built on the strength of a burning bush with a statue of
The Virgin in it.
Like yer do. The bush burned on Lady Day and so they built a cathedral in a village; happens all the time ay?
L'Epi is the french name for the star Spica and is the real reason the Christian monument was built over the top of a former place of worship. All part of their ongoing ethnic cleansing programme.
Archangel Gabriel is the star Fomalhaut (3° Pisces 52), one of the four royal stars. Fomalhaut is the
"Star of Alchemy"
5000 years ago Fomalhaut marked the Winter Solstice, yet rose about 35 days before the Summer Solstice in around 1000CE.
Fomalhaut is popular with visual astronomers because to say it is spectacular is an understatement.
It is also popular with
North American First Nations
March 25th is also the date of Bernadette Soudirous' 16th and longest vision of:
Our Lady of Lourdes.
On March 25, the day of the sixteenth vision, the
"Lady" revealed to Bernadette,
"I am the Immaculate Conception." A phrase only coined by the then Pope shortly before.
How good of
"The Lady" to say this on Lady Day.
Except
"The Lady" didn't say that. she said:
"Que soi er'immaculada concepcion"
Her sister and her friend were also present and stated that they saw nothing. At no point in any of her visions did Bernadette Soubirous describe
"The Lady" as the Virgin Mary.
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