When Modern Fables Mix With Art History
by Kim White
Marie Hines combines a modern fable with a traditional Art Historical theme to create this provocative take on the annunciation. Hines’ composition uses familiar tropes: flowers, intense color, a winged messenger, and a pregnant Madonna. But Hines updates this classic theme by combining the ages-old story with a modern fable called The Birds.
The Birds (left) chronicles the invasion and occupation of a woman’s most personal space—her home—by a group of heavenly, but unwanted, guests. The angel, in the form of a hummingbird with a deeply masculine voice, marginalizes the female protagonist. When she recovers from the humiliation and tries to stand up for herself, he sics his henchmen on her and sends her into permanent exile.
By bringing this particular fable into the mix, Hines puts a feminist spin on well-trodden annunciation territory. Consider these older examples:
The conventional approach to the annunciation can be seen in this painting by Jean Hey. The Madonna is portrayed as a beautiful, submissive princess. Dressed in royal red and blue, she regally accepts her duty to bear the Son of God in spite of what she must sacrifice.
By contrast, in a painting entitled la Orana Maria, Gauguin gives us a peasant Madonna. Half-dressed and uncivilized, Gauguin’s Mary lives in a paradise where motherhood is easy, natural, and uncomplicated.
Hines gives us a Madonna who is neither peasant nor princess. Her Madonna is matter-of-factly pregnant and decidedly unglamorous. The symbols of fertility and femininity swirl around her as she looks dubiously over her shoulder at the source of that “masculine” voice insisting she surrender her territory. Hines refers to Gauguin, placing her “Maria” in a flowered sarong and emphasizing the thickness of her body. But there is nothing of the blissful savage in this woman’s expression. She knows she is being tricked, but she is resigned to the inevitability of it. Unlike Hey’s Madonna, she doesn’t hold up her hand in blessed acceptance. She wants to fight, but hasn’t yet figured out how.
