This is not the Mary of frescoes and gilded icons. She is not the exalted mother of saints, not yet the revered figure of devotion. She is a girl—a poor, Middle Eastern teenager, sitting on the edge of a simple bed, wrapped in a heavy robe, staring into a light that changes everything. Her posture is hesitant, her expression uncertain. There is no divine glow about her, no immediate acceptance of fate. She is young. She is afraid.
And yet, she stays.
Whenever I see depictions of Mary, I think of my own mother, who was a teenage mom. I think of the countless teenage mothers I have worked with as a high school teacher—young women suddenly faced with the weight of responsibility, their lives changing in an instant. For those reasons, Mary holds a special place in my heart. Not as a distant religious figure, but as a girl whose story mirrors the reality of so many others.
Tanner’s Mary is the most honest I have ever seen. She is not an icon; she is a person. And that is why this painting matters to me.
Gabriel, too, is stripped of tradition. There are no wings, no robes—only a flood of light, a force rather than a figure. It does not speak; it consumes. This is divinity as something unknowable, something overwhelming. And Mary, sitting in its glow, is left only with her fear, her uncertainty, and her faith.
That is what makes this painting extraordinary.
Faith, in The Annunciation, is not blind devotion. It is not certainty. It is the act of staying in the light, even when it is terrifying. It is the willingness to listen, to remain open, to accept what feels impossible. That is not just a religious idea—it is a human one. And that is why this painting moves me, not as a person of faith, but as someone who has seen young women like Mary.
She is not just a biblical figure. She is someone’s daughter. She is someone’s mother. And in this painting, she is someone real.