As we continue my tenth anniversary survey of highlights of the on-line Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, I have selected artworks for the month of November on a biblical story, appropriate for the weeks leading up to Christmas--the Annunciation, recorded in Luke 1:26-38, when the Angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary to tell her she had been chosen by God to be the mother of the Messiah. My first featured piece is a mixed media drawing of the contemplative Mary from French Artist Maurice Denis, a sketch for a 1907 painting of the Annunciation set in the Italian village of Fiesole in Tuscany, one of many such variations he made on this theme and setting. A devout Roman Catholic, Denis was a key figure in the transition from Impressionism to early Modern art. He was involved for a time in the symbolist movement but developed a more "classical" style with simplified figures in flat color planes "to express the mysteries of the Faith clearly in the play of forms and colors.” (John Kohan)