| National Gallery of Art

Publication

Art and the Early Photographic Album

12 essays explore important ways in which photographically illustrated publications influenced the experience and the history of art.

Publication

Modernism and Landscape Architecture, 1890–1940

The twelve essays included in this exceptional volume grapple with the definition and significance of modernism in landscape design during this transformative era.

February 7, 2025

INTERACTIVE ARTICLE

Stories and Symbols in Jan van Eyck’s "The Annunciation"

The work is a triumph of early Northern Renaissance painting—and storytelling.

A woman and winged angel, both with pale, peach skin, are situated in a church interior in this tall, narrow painting. To our left, the angel has long, blond, curly hair, smooth skin, and is smiling. The wings are outlined in royal blue, and they blend from blue to green to yellow to crimson. The angel holds one hand, closer to us, up at chest height with the index finger subtly pointing upward. Holding a long scepter in the other hand, the angel angles their body toward the woman to our right. The angel wears a gold jewel and pearl-encrusted crown and a jeweled long, voluminous robe in scarlet-red and shimmering gold brocade. The neck and along the opening down the front are lined with pearls and jewels. The angel looks toward the woman, who wears a royal-blue dress tied with a red belt at the high waist. Her long brown hair is tied back but one tendril falls over her left shoulder, to our right. She kneels facing us with her raised hands facing outward. Her head is tipped a bit to our left, and she looks up and into the distance to our right with lips slightly parted. She kneels behind a book lying open on a low table. A vase of white lilies and a red cushion lies on the floor in front of the table, close to us. The floor is decorated with people and scenes outlined in black and set into square panels, as if inlaid with wood. The church behind and above the people has a row of tall, narrow arches with bull’s-eye glass windows. A walkway lined with columns runs above the arches, and sunlight comes in through arched windows under the flat wood ceiling. A white dove flies toward the woman on gold lines from a window at the upper left of the painting. Latin words painted in gold capital letters are exchanged between the people. The angel says, “AVE GRA PLENA.” The letters of the woman’s response are painted upside down and backward: “ECCE ANCILLA DNI.”

Publication

Rediscovering the Ancient World on the Bay of Naples, 1710–1890

This fascinating book examines responses to the excavations of ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum by 18th- and 19th-century monarchs, statesmen, scholars, and archaeologists, as well as by artists, architects, designers, writers, and tourists.

Publication

The Artist in Edo

A historic first showing outside Japan of Itō Jakuchū's thirty-scroll series Colorful Realm of Living Beings (c. 1757–1766) at the National Gallery of Art was the occasion for this collection of twelve essays that reimagine the concepts of the artist and art-making as they were understood in early modern Japan.

Publication

The Civil War in Art and Memory

Reflecting on the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War, this notable book brings together a range of media and perspectives that show how the conflict has been recorded and remembered over time.

Publication

The Global Reception of Heinrich Wolfflin’s Principles of Art History

Can the reception of a single, widely disseminated book offer a historical road map for a global art history? This is the question posed by the editors of this volume of essays, which charts the enduring response to Heinrich Wölfflin’s Principles of Art History.