Courcoux & Courcoux - John Charlesworth

Seaside Annunciation
Acrylic on wood panel	14" x 12"	£975

What better hybrid entity to represent the so-called Virgin Mary than a rabbit-mermaid. Rabbit for gentleness, meekness, mildness etc and mermaid for absence of whistular access in the usual way. And the archangel Gabriel as a bee seems fitting , too, bees being generally good things, messengers in their fashion as well as harbingers of a reproductive cycle.
So much for neatness. The seaside setting suggested itself because it was high summer here in S.W. Dorset when I painted this (rather nearer Christmas than nine months, admittedly), and the seaside was where we wanted to be and where I wanted to settle my imaginative life.