Annunziation und Petrifikation in der Malerei des Quattrocento

During the Quattrocento and Cinquecento, both north and south of the Alps, a phenomenon in painting appears that cannot be tied to any known specific iconography. Frequently dismissed - or until recently simply ignored - as mere thoughtless "imitations of nature" of stone surfaces, these gestural and informal shapes and free color forms instead bring the painter's artistic expression to light. The fluid surfaces depicted in images of the Annunciation during the 15 th century are a particularly noteworthy examples of this technique, in which the removal of forms and an arbitrary choice of color reflect the painterly design and creative process. In no way do these painterly and evocative surfaces produce the impression of a stable floor made of stone. Rather, it seems that the diametrically opposite effect was intended: an Annunciation on a fluid, undefined and changing ground. In the evocation of these faux marble panels, the process of the figurative petra facere , the color-imagined process of petrification, can be observed. Since their emergence in the Quattrocentro, these color surfaces in religious paintings have been gradually freed from a specific representation, to the point where color is presented as an intrinsic substantial possibility in its own right.