The Season of Advent begins the end of November. With so many new offerings to bring on-line before Christmas, I'm adding a selection of fine art images this month to the Annunciation and Magnificat pages of the Coming of Christ gallery. You can see the Angel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin Mary in a recycled cardboard panel painting by American Visionary Artist Rudolph Valentino Bostic; an Art Deco drypoint by Dutch Artist Lodewijk Schelfhout; an impressionistic etching by Serbian Printmaker Rajna Nikolic; two parchment paintings by unknown Ethiopian iconographers in very different styles; a watercolor by English Painter David Jackson, based on a medieval stained glass window in York Minster; and a delightful ceramic holy water basin by Mexican Potter Moises Rodriguez. There are splendid new images of the Virgin Mary, as well, from international art-makers just uploaded alongside the text of the Magnificat. Spanish Artist Martin Rigo presents a contemporary Madonna and Christ child, little different from any mother and toddler, while Russian Printmaker Anatoly Poutiline creates a luminous abstract from iconographic motifs. Traditional iconic images of the Virgin and Child appear in a monochrome, beaded panel by American Mixed Media Artist Nancy Goes and in a reversed glass icon from Romania. American Printmaker Barry Moser gives us a pensive portrait of Mary from his cycle of 230 wood engravings for the Pennyroyal Caxton Bible, a pose similar to South African Artist Ben Macala's charcoal and pastel study of the Virgin with downcast eyes. Japanese Graphic Artist Kaoru Kawano rounds out this diverse geographic group with a woodcut of the Madonna and Child, titled Maria Kwannon, a reference to the Buddhist goddess of mercy and compassion. (John Kohan)