During the 1980s, Warhol embarked on a series of reworkings of well-known religious paintings, including Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, Uccello’s St. George and the Dragon, and the inspiration for this work, Leonardo’s Annunciation. Warhol focuses on a detail of Leonardo’s painting, the angel Gabriel blessing the Virgin Mary. Only hands are seen, Gabriel’s at the left, the Virgin’s at the right, while the central portion of the work is absorbed by a landscape view. He distilled the iconography of Leonardo’s painting to its essential meaning, the expanse the blessing travels across space, from Gabriel to Mary, from heaven to earth. Some observers see Warhol’s appropriation of Catholic imagery as distant and impersonal as his use of commercial logos and other “cultural artifacts.” Others, however, have connected these works to his upbringing as a Byzantine Catholic and a spiritual consciousness that recurs throughout his life’s work. These viewers point to the Electric Chair Series as a meditation on mortality; the iconic portraits of Marilyn, Liz, and Jackie as contemporary translations of traditional icons; and his late series of crucifixes as devotional expressions for the modern age.