Paintings by Giotto, Piero della Francesco, Petrus Christus, Leonardo da Vinci, Georgione, Correggio, Bruegel, Caravaggio, Honthurst, Rubens, de la Tour, Gauguin, Brugghen, von Soest, Ghirlandaio

The Birth of Christ

A CHILD IS BORN!

Date: 1100's 

Location: St. Denis Basilica, Paris

Mary lies resting on a simple frame-bed, with the swaddled baby beside her. Joseph looks down on them both. Angels perch, bird-like, above. All three are dressed or covered with blue, the color of heaven. Windows in medieval churches were used as teaching aids by the clergy, since few people could read the actual story in the Bible for themselves.

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Miniature ivory plaque showing Mary lying on a bed. It may have been part of a portable icon or altar belonging to a royal or aristocratic family, carried around from castle to castle. Most noble families had a portable altar which traveled with them.
 See also the ivory tabernacle shown below.

The composition of the plaque is divided into two sections, roughly corresponding to the sacred and the profane: Mary and some angels on the left, larger section, and Joseph (?) and the animals on the right.

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Date:  1150

Artist:  Meister der Palastkapelle, Palermo

Comment: Mary and Jesus are at the center of this composite picture. Around them are 
 * the singing angels, 
 * the Three Wise Men, 
 * a perturbed Joseph awaking from his dream of danger, 
 * shepherds with gifts, 
 * and at bottom an image of Mary presenting Jesus in the Temple - though this seems to imply something like Christian Baptism.

This ancient picture has survived because it is a fresco made from colored glass and stone fragments, usually on a high wall - and hence not subject to damp or vandals. 

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Date:  1200's

Stained glass window from Canterbury Cathedral (?).  Each scene illustrates an episode in the life of Christ. 

England does not have a wealth of medieval stained glass, as most of it was deliberately destroyed during the Reformation - done no doubt for sound theological reasons, but a terrible act of vandalism nonetheless. 

People at the time believed the colors and images of stained glass distracted the worshipper away from inner communion with God. The reformers favored clear glass, which allowed light to stream into post-Reformation churches.

Date:  late 1300's

Artist:  Ivory tabernacle, Louvre

The central panel of this exquisite little icon shows a Madonna with the child Jesus.
On the left panel are scenes of the Annunciation (upper left) and the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth (upper right) and the Three Kings (lower).

The right panel has a charming scene of the Holy Family, with a bearded Joseph nursing the baby Jesus while Mary has a quiet little sleep - possibly a reference to the medieval belief that she suffered no pain while giving birth to Jesus, and that his birth was miraculous and did not entail the breaking of her intact hymen - in other words, she slept through the entire birth.  

The panels on bottom right show the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, with Simeon to the right of the Virgin and Child.  

Medieval nobles were highly mobile, and this exquisite little altar was portable, carried from castle to castle or just from room to room. 

Date:  1305

Artist:  Giotto

Location: Scrovegni Chapel

An unnamed woman passes the newly-swaddled infant Jesus to his mother, who lies on a pallet after giving birth. Joseph is waking up - according to medieval thinking, the aged Joseph had not witnessed the miraculous birth of the baby. Angels tumble over the roof of the open shed in which Mary lies. They are watched by surprised shepherds. 

The ox and the ass seems to have had the best view of the whole event - being animals, they carried no sin, and so were allowed to witness what happened in the stable.

Giotto has managed to capture the tenderness and wonder of Mary as she surveys her new-born son.

Painter: Duccio di Buoninsegna

This image of the Birth of Christ was one panel from a huge altar piece originally in the cathedral at Siena. It was placed there in 1311. In 1711, by now out of fashion, it was sawn into pieces and distributed to separate locations. Some of the original panels have been lost, but this one, of the birth of Christ, gives some idea of blazing beauty of the sumptuous original.

Date:  circa 1400

Artist:  Alabaster carved icon, faded coloring. 

In this charming icon, Mary sleeps after the birth of Jesus. Joseph watches over her with obvious and touching concern. There is a homeliness, an intimacy  about the figures that is unusual. The Holy Family are shown here as normal people, with the emotions and needs of an ordinary family.

Date:  1403

Artist:  Conrad von Soest

The stable's roof may be in disrepair, but Mary's clothing is not. Nor is she cold - Joseph is blowing on a little fire, either to warm the room or prepare some food for her - probably both. Her look of utter tenderness is homely and realistic, and the baby turns its little head towards her.

(Right) Another painting by Conrad von Soest, this one of the death of Mary, the mother of Jesus. It is surprisingly explicit, at least to modern eyes. Mary's hands are already blue, as a dying person's extremities will register the onset of death before any other part of the body. Two angels tenderly close her eyes and mouth. John the Beloved Disciple stands faithfully by her, in place of the Son she has lost.

(Left) The painting of the death of Mary in situ, in the Marienkirche in Dortmund.

Painter:  Gentile da Fabriano

Title: The altarpiece of the Adoration of the Magi is Fabriano's most famous painting. Contrast its lavish intricacy with Gauguin's painting of a Polynesian Mary (at bottom of this page) and you will see the evolution of religious painting at a glance. Which do you like better?

Painter:  Jacques Darat

Altarpiece of the Virgin

Contrast this painting with the carved icon above. It is an altarpiece, meant for public display, and there is nothing homely about this Holy Family. Mary's cloak is embroidered with gold thread; her skin has the delicate bloom of a French noblewoman of the time. The stable appears to come equipped with a plush red armchair for her to sit on. This is the venerated Mary of the medieval Catholic church, second only to her Son.

Date:  1445

Artist:  Petrus Christus

Perhaps the most interesting beings in this painting are the angels, gorgeously dressed and with wings glowing with color. Heavenly creatures indeed. But poor little Jesus, unclothed and with not even a cradle in which to lie. No crib for his bed, indeed.

Petrus Christus was born at the beginning of the fifteenth century at a village called Baerle in the province of North Brabant. He settled in the city of Bruges in 1444 and purchased his freedom of that city, becoming a master in the Guild of St Luke. 

He seems to have been the first Flemish easel-painter to introduced items of everyday life into his paintings - something for which Netherlands paintings would, in future centuries, become famous. He was also a very skilled worker, and his technique alone would single him out from among his contemporaries. 

Date:  1470

Artist:  Piero della Francesca

Mary kneels in ethereal simplicity, adoring her tiny Son. Flowers have sprung up in the ground around him. The choir of angels play lutes, typical courtly instruments of the period -  they seem suitably unaware of the large, rather determined ox who tries to nudge them aside. The realism of this creature is surprising, given that painters of this and succeeding periods were not often happy in their drawing of animals. 
To the right we see Joseph with two shepherds - this threesome seem altogether more vigorous than the other figures in the painting. 
The background for the group is a broken-down stable with brick walls and a plank roof on which the grass is sprouting. On the edge a bird has perched. 
 In the background is a landscape showing the foothills of the Apennines, and on the right a minute vista of the town, Borgo San Sepolcro, where della Francesca was born in about 1416 - so he has given him birthplace a touch of immortality in this painting.

Curious to think that this painting was done just twenty years or so before Columbus set sail for the Americas.

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Painter:  Francesco di Giorgio Martini.

 Manuscript illumination, inset in capital letter probably at head of page. 

The intricacy of these hand-painted manuscript pages is astonishing -see the thumb-nail below, taken from a Book of Hours produced in Belgium some time about 1450.

Artist:  Leonardo da Vinci

Title: Adoration of the Magi

Critics and antiquarians have spent many hours on this drawing/painting, attempting to work out what parts of it were painted by da Vinci, and what parts were the work of a later hand. No matter. The superb drawing and composition are unmistakably da Vinci's.

The painting pulses with energy. There is a sense of barely controlled chaos in the people, animals and landscape - but at the center, holding it all together, is the still, calm figure of Mary, and a chubby, unconcerned Baby Jesus.

Date:  1485, Adoration of the Shepherds

Artist:  Domenico Ghirlandaio

'Who are all these people?' poor Joseph seems to be saying, as he gazes at the crowd coming down the hill towards his little family.
Mary, like all of Ghirlandaio's women (see thumbnail below), is serene, untroubled, concentrating only on her little son, the center of her universe. The baby is naked - which of course he would not have been in real life. Jewish babies were swaddled in long strips of cloth to give them a sense of security, akin to the constraint they had experienced in the womb.

In less skilful hands this might have been a 'busy' picture. Instead, it teems with life and activity. Even the animals are alert, ears pricked, focused on the Lord of Nature.

Artist: Lorenzo Costa

Lucky Lyon in France to have this picture in their gallery. The Madonna has the facial delicacy which was a feature of Costa's paintings. 
Am I alone in noting some similarity between this Madonna and the women painted by Leonardo da Vinci?
Note the pose of the Infant Jesus; he is usually shown lying on his back looking upwards at his mother. Discarding this formula, Costa has a drowsy Infant looking outwards, towards the viewer. 
Joseph looks glum - or is it merely his drooping moustache that makes him seem so?

Alternative version of the same painting

Date:  1490

Artist:  Jans tot Sint Geertgen

The faces of Mary and the angels glow with light coming from the figure of the newborn Christ. From the moment of his birth, Jesus is a source of radiant  enlightenment to the world.

Frankly, I find the painting in the thumbnail below more interesting. Mary, crowned with roses (a 'rosary'?) holds the newborn Jesus in her arms. She crushes a serpent/dragon under her foot, and seems encased in an egg-like ball of light - 'clothed with the sun' as in Revelations 12. Around her, angels swirl, some of them playing musical instruments, other holding the implements of Jesus' Passion.

Date:  1500

Artist:  Giorgione

At first glance this painting of the Adoration of the Shepherds seems rather unexciting. Mary and a suitably aged Joseph gaze at the the newly born Jesus, and the two shepherds bow before the tiny naked figure lying on the ground.

But what about the landscape to the left of the painting? What is the significance of that deep corridor of space that leads off into the distance? The setting seems stronger, more arresting, than the subject itself. Are we meant to think that Giorgione has painted the path humanity will take, into a Christian future?

Date:  1503

Painter:  Michael Pacher 

The St. Wolfgang Altarpiece

Pacher was a wood-carver as well as a painter, and it shows. His figures have a three-dimensional realism that other painters could only copy. When he was a young man he was deeply impressed with the work of the Italian Andrea Mantegna, whose works are famous for their use of perspective, foreshortening  and depth. As well, Pacher used intricate detail in those parts of the Altarpiece that are carved.

The thumbnail at right shows the St Wolfgang Altarpiece in all its extravagant  glory.

Painter:  Gerard David  

The Nativity

Comment: Art critics have called Gerard David's paintings conservative, even bland, and who am I to argue? But he paints the most wonderful angels - glorious creatures, truly celestial. See their exquisite wings, for example in his 'Annunciation' in the thumbnail at right. If this is 'conservative', give me more.

Bruges, as the headquarters of Netherlands art, was losing its importance to Antwerp when this painting was done. David was the dean of the painters' guild, and also the last great master from this town. His paintings, beautiful as they are, have a certain melancholy about them, a gentle sadness.

Painter:  Albrecht Altdorfer

It's hard not to be flippant about the renovator's nightmare that shelters Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus. They have obviously taken refuge in a ruined house. But this house is a metaphor for the world to which Jesus came, a moral shambles with not even one part of it truly habitable. Into such a world was Jesus born.

For another painting of Mary and her son by Altdorfer, but this time with a very different mood, see the thumbnail opposite.

Painter:  Matthias Grünewald

Title: The Concert of Angels and the Nativity

At last, Mary in pink rather than blue. 
Click on the picture for an enlargement, to see Mary's delighted smile and the baby chortling up at her - also the cello-playing angel's pure joy at the arrival of the Savior.

Date:  1528

Artist:  Antonio Allegri, called Correggio

One suspects that Correggio was not a deeply religious man. He was always at pains to show the human face and form in its most pleasing manner, and his most successful work was in the paintings he did of Greek mythology.

 His Madonnas are very human, albeit strikingly beautiful. The figures in his paintings almost always have beautifully rounded limbs, perfect skin and charming contours - an ideal derived from the artist's personal dislike of all kinds of discord, either in life or art. 

The treatment of the flesh tones in this particular painting are typical of Correggio's style - he was a master of chiaroscuro, the art of rendering light in shadow and shadow in light. The flesh of Mary, the Babe, the shepherds and even the ethereal angels glows as if alive and warm, with the tints so perfectly fused that there is a soft roundness in even the masculine figures.

Date:  1564

Artist:  Pieter Bruegel

True to form, there is not too much physical beauty in Bruegel's painting of the Nativity. Even here he will not idealize the scene.
One interesting point is the sleeve-length of the king in the left foreground -- overlong to show extravagant use of rich material, and to signal that the owner never has to do any sort of practical work - though there is obviously some slit in the sleeve for the wearer's hand to pass through. But kneeling before this tiny baby, the king has discarded his scepter and crown.

Artist:  Marten de Vos

It's an ill wind that blows no good. 
Many of the paintings in Antwerp churches were destroyed by Protestant iconoclasts during the 'cleansing' of the Protestant Reformation - in Antwerp, this was in 1566. When sanity returned, Marten de Vos was one of the artists commissioned to make new paintings to replace the destroyed and disfigured ones. 
Notice the rich colors; the ruined buildings - not only a sign of Jesus' humble circumstances, but symbol of a degraded civilization; and the distant shepherds cavorting as they wave to the angels above.

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Date:  1597

Artist:  Federico Barocci

Title: Birth of Christ

How sweet this painting is. Mary, the new mother, is unable to drag her gaze away from the miracle that is her baby; Joseph, the elated father, pulling visitors in to see his child, surely the most wonderful thing in the universe; and the calm ox and donkey, who look as if they have seen it all before.

Barocci used pastel colors to great effect. His paintings were subtle, gentle, engaging. The composition of this paintings is also interesting: the newborn baby is at the far right, almost outside the picture, but everything directs our eye towards it: Joseph's pointing hand, Mary's face and hands, the animals' gaze.

Painter:  El Greco

Comment: The figures, while clearly mortal, as so ethereal they almost seem to float. El Greco has spurned the traditional blue for Mary's robe, and Joseph's figure is haloed by a golden cloak. These are no ordinary parents, the artist says. The tiny baby, so vulnerable in its nakedness, emanates light.

El Greco captured the essence of all great Spanish art:  subtle sensuality, sophistication, and unique emotional intensity. 

Date:  1609

Artist:  Michelangelo Caravaggio

Caravaggio, of course, is always original. His Mary is in disarray, and slumps back in exhaustion - in fact, like any woman who has just given birth. Joseph gazes unblinkingly at the little form on the floor -  new life, so full of promise. The shepherds crowd around, talking among themselves. An angel hovers overhead, holding the banner that proclaims 'Gloria in Excelsis Deo'.

Date:  1619

Artist:  Hendrik ter Brugghen

Title: Adoration of the Kings

The richly garbed kings are full of gravity and reverence as they offer their gifts - Brugghen suggests they knew very well how momentous is the birth of this little child.

Date:  1622

Artist:  Gerard van Honthorst

Radiant light emanates from the newborn child, illuminating everything around it - a symbol of course of the message this baby will bring to the world. But Mary, do cover him up please - it's winter, after all.

Can anyone tell me what the device is in the bottom right hand corner?

Date:  1634

Artist:  Peter Paul Rubens

Ruben's Mary is no peasant girl, but a sumptuously dressed queen holding her little prince. The painting has the luscious colors Rubens was noted for - especially gold and red, the colors of triumph - and this is a triumphal scene, with a doctrinal message: Jesus is the Prince of Heaven, with kings as his subjects. Fat little cherubs hover above.

Artist:  George de la Tour

Title: Adoration of the Shepherds

Comment: de la Tour is famous for his use of light, and of candlelight in particular, and now he paints the Light of the World. The viewer stands in the darkened background a little away from the quiet, reverent group. The faces of these people show that they are aware of the significance of the newborn child - their focus on his tiny swaddled figure is complete.

Artist:  James Tissot

Title: Journey of the Magi

Comment: Tissot was not a religious man, and strictly speaking this painting is really only an excuse to show the grandeur of the highland country near Jerusalem/Bethlehem, and the magnificent Arab kings as they travel in search of Jesus. 

Date:  1896 (both paintings)

Artist:  Paul Gauguin

Title: Te Tamari No Atua (Nativity)

Comment: The exalted mythic creatures of medieval Nativity scenes have disappeared. Despite the presence of the guarding angel, this is a real woman, cradling her baby and lying exhausted after the birth. The fact that she is Polynesian surprises a viewer accustomed to an Anglo-Saxon Mary, but reminds us that Mary was neither: she was a Jewish peasant woman from the farming province of Galilee.

Date:  1970's?

Location: Arenberg, Vienna

Comment: This stained glass window has discarded the realism of Victorian-era windows, and opted instead for exaggerated detail popular in mid-twentieth century artworks. The faces and hands are strong, simple and beautiful; the figures and composition are traditional. The artist wishes to draw the viewer into the solemnity of this moment, without distracting details and artifice getting in the way.

EXTRA WEBSITES: stories, photographs, reconstructions

Mary of Nazareth, mother of Jesus - her story   BIBLE PEOPLE: MARY

Joseph of Nazareth - his story  BIBLE PEOPLE: JOSEPH

Choosing a suitable husband, and marrying him  BIBLE WOMEN: MAJOR EVENTS 

Clothes and houses of that time  WOMEN IN THE BIBLE: CLOTHING AND HOUSING 

THE BIRTH OF CHRIST

LUKE 2

The Birth of Jesus

1  In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. ²This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³All went to their own towns to be registered. 

⁴Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. ⁵He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 

⁶While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. ⁷And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

The Shepherds and the Angels

8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: ¹¹to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹²This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ 

¹³And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
¹⁴‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
   and on earth peace among those whom he favors!’

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ 

¹⁶So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. ¹⁷When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; ¹⁸and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 

¹⁹But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 

²⁰The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

The things she knew, let her forget again --

The voices in the sky, the fear, the cold,

The gaping shepherds, and the queer old men

Piling their clumsy gifts of foreign gold.

Let her have laughter with her little one;

Teach her the endless, tuneless songs to sing,

Grant her her right to whisper to her son

The foolish names one dare not call a king.

Keep from her dreams the rumble of a crowd,

The smell of rough-cut wood, the trail of red,

The thick and chilly whiteness of the shroud

That wraps the strange new body of the dead.

Ah, let her go, kind Lord, where mothers go

And boast his pretty words and ways, and plan

The proud and happy years that they shall know

Together, when her son is grown a man.

                                                                   Dorothy Parker

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Bible Stories: People of the Old Testament - Bible Study Resource: The Nativity - the birth of Jesus Christ at Bethlehem, to his mother Mary. Joseph and the shepherds.