meandering through dc and directional meaning

Why is Mary always on the right of the canvas? We often trace meaning left to right, ordained by the directionality of Western language. If we transpose the reading of the page onto our reading of the canvas, maybe the tradition within the lineage of Annunciation paintings makes sense.

However, 'left' and 'right' correlating with 'beginning' and 'end' loses some of the nuance of the context meaning is framed within. Simple sentences are usually constructed in a subject-verb-object procession (or subject-object-verb, but that maintains the same left-to-right heirarchy); a similar structure can be used to describe the Annunciation class of depictions-- "Gabriel delivered the message to Mary"^[1]. We build context left to right and arrive at the locus of suspense: Mary. It is not Gabriel's question, but her answer (her humanity against his divinity) that leaves the viewer suspended in the moment's infinite awe.

Of course, while a sentence is a logical grouping that is delineated with beginning and ending, when confined to the margins of the page (and potentially grasping at another degree of freedom--up/down) it can violate that sinistrodextral quality. I don't think this readily attacks the transposition of readings between mediums; there is so much more depth and curvature to artwork that encourages the viewer to abide by a rough left-to-right unfurling.

We seem to innately accept this mode (left-to-right) of interacting with the world: time is usually read in this manner, and by extension calendars, etc etc. I recently went on a weekend sabbatical to Washington, D.C. to visit someone (and escape the obligations of whatever work pressing on my mind). The above tangent has almost nothing to do with this trip, other than that I saw Fra Carnevale's Annunciation in person at the NGA and really enjoyed it (as I did van Eyck's). I really could spend an eternity looking at these paintings, but then we were kicked out very promptly at 5 and forced to escape to other endeavors.

We ran around the Washington Monument/Lincoln memorial (classic), ate at some really good places (il Canale), and, most importantly, crawled through a few bookstores. I began reading Dubliners on the train over, but left with quite the collection of acquisitions:

• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
• The New York Stories of Edith Wharton (I like NYRB)
• Julius Caesar
• Modernism, Peter Childs
• The Italian Campaign, John Strawson

1. Obviously, there are many ways to construct a sentence that captures the meaning of the Annunciation (and to varying degrees of fidelity). I chose a sentence that underscores the physical action and positioning within space (Gabriel descending, Mary devotedly waiting). The succession of physical action is context that builds to the suspense of Mary's reaction to her brush with the divine message; it lingers on the question of Mary's response, the privileged signifier of the work's context. ↩