The Annunciation The Angel 

Edward Burne-Jones painted this “Annunciation” with oil on canvas. The textures of the building and the angel’s robes are the real story here. Notice the rough, matte surface, particularly in the angel’s robe. Burne-Jones applied thin layers of paint, almost like a watercolor, allowing the weave of the canvas to show through. The pre-Raphaelites who followed John Ruskin, whom Burne-Jones apprenticed with, revered medieval art, and this piece is interesting because it appears like a fresco painting. Fresco paintings are made by applying pigment to wet plaster, a common art process practiced during the Italian Renaissance. This was labor-intensive, and required the knowledge of the materials, but Burne-Jones’s final surface is not just aesthetically pleasing, but historically rich. By layering both material and historical references, Burne-Jones collapses boundaries between fine art, craft, labor, and history.