The Annunciation by Joos van Cleve, oil on wood, circa 1525. Gabriel and Mary are presented within an elaborately furnished interior that would have been familiar to 16th century viewers. However, most of the objects, arranged unobtrusively within the room, carry symbolic meaning. The altarpiece and the woodcut on the wall, for example, show Old Testament prophets as prefigurations of New Testament themes. Influenced by Italian art, Joos appropriated a new canon of beauty, a new repertory of rhetorical gesture, and a striking grace of movement in his figures. The Annunciation is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus, the Son of God, marking his Incarnation. Gabriel told Mary to name her son Jesus (meaning Savior). Many Christians observe this event with the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25, nine full months before Christmas, the ceremonial birthday of Jesus. The Annunciation has been a key topic in Christian art in general, as well as in Marian art in the Catholic Church, particularly during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.