Cacher – Devoiler: L’Annonciation et La Nativité du Christ dans les peintures de Moldavie. Une lecture possible
Hiding - Revealing: The Annunciation and Nativity of Christ in the Paintings of Moldavia. A Possible Reading

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with the analysis of some details found in the painted representations of two great themes of Christian iconography, with some peculiarities in the Orthodox Church: The Annunciation and the Nativity of Christ. One of these peculiarities is the presence of a red veil in the Annunciation, which hides and unveils in the same time the significance of the representation. The prophecy of Isaiah (Is 7, 14),together with the text of Lucas the Evangelist (Lc 1, 26 - 35), are the images’ sources, which have as a central point the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God into the womb of a Virgin. Mary was a virgin before the descent of the Holy Spirit above her, stayed virgin during her pregnancy and after the birth of Jesus. An analogy for the red veil in the Annunciation and for the red mattress in the Nativity is to be found in the Exodus (Ex, 26, 31 -37), when Yahweh indicated to Moses the aspect of the veil separating the Saint from the Saint of Saints before the crossing of the desert of Sinai. Moses was invited to dismember the Tent for the long route to the Promise Land and to cover the Ark of the Covenant with the sacred veil (The Numbers, 4, 5). Churches and icons in the Orthodox world, and especially in Moldavia, are marked by the presence of this polysemic symbol.

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