Raphael, The Marriage of the Virgin, 1504.

The Nativity of Jesus is drawn from accounts of Christ’s birth in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew. Following the Annunciation, Mary tells Joseph that she is with child and goes to visit her relative, Elizabeth, who is pregnant with John the Baptist. Just as the Annunciation tested Mary’s faith and character, so did her revealing of her pregnancy to Joseph. Mary’s divine pregnancy put Joseph in a very tough spot socially and culturally, and the proper thing to do to save face would be to call off the engagement. According to the Gospel of Luke, the couple travelled to Bethlehem to participate in the Roman census. It is here that Jesus is born in a stable because the inns in town had no vacancy, and it is here that he was wrapped in swaddling cloth and laid in a manger. According to Matthew, while in Bethlehem, an angel appeared to Joseph and told him to go through with his marriage to Mary. He also warns Joseph of the jealous King Herod, who wants to kill Jesus and plans to achieve this (since he doesn’t know which baby in his kingdom is the new King of the Jews) by  killing all baby boys. The angel tells Joseph to flee into Egypt and stay there until it is safe to return to home, once Herod has died.

Art history and modern tradition tend to mix up  or combine the accounts of the Nativity as they’re told in the Gospels. Luke doesn’t mention the Massacre of the Innocents or the flight into Egypt. Instead, according to Luke, Mary and Joseph are visited by shepherds in the stable, who admire the newborn king. Mary and Joseph eventually return home to Nazareth, but not before taking the eight-day-old Jesus to the Temple to be circumcised and blessed.  It is in Matthew that we find Joseph’s dreams, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Adoration of the Magi (which includes a clever plot by Herod, who sent the Magi to be spies), the Flight into Egypt, and the return home to Nazareth, in Galilee. Many of the stories in each of these Gospels are extremely popular in art history, and still much iconography is drawn from legends and apocryphal gospels.

Peter Paul Rubens, Massacre of the Innocents, 1611.

Artists have presented the stories found in Luke and Matthew, especially the Adorations of the Magi and Shepherds, in many different ways. For this reason, I’ve included a gallery at the end of this post so you can see the vast array of differing modes of representation. I want to focus on a couple paintings from each motif. Feel free to read the Nativity story for yourself in Luke and Matthew, and then take a look at the gallery of images below and think about how artists’ representations differ or are similar to the actual text behind these themes!

Fra Angelico & Fra Filipo Lippi, Adoration of the Magi, c. 1440-1460

In  mid-fifteenth century Florence, Fra Angelico and Fra Filipo Lippi collaborated on The Adoration of the Magi. The National Gallery has a truly wonderful description and explanation of this artwork, and I encourage you to give it a  read. The painting

The entire painting, rich with Renaissance symbolism, can be seen as an analogy of the glory of the newfound Christ and the restoration of the world through Him. Indeed, the importance of the Nativity was not lost on Catholicism. The Tridentine Catechism cautions believers:

El Greco, Adoration of the Shepherds, 1612-14.

El Greco’s 1612-14 painting of the Adoration of the Shepherds presents a much more simplistic representation of the wonder of the newborn king. That is, it lacks the complex symbols found in Fra Angelo and Filipo Lippi’s painting. True to form, El Greco separates the heavenly and earthly realm but highlights the divine nature of Jesus through an impressive burst of light. Mary sits in quiet, still adoration as the shepherds physically react to the holy baby, their bodies twisting and hands raised in excite movement. The angels join in the celebration. In this way, the heavens and the earth are combined; joined by their mutual adoration of the Christ child.

Annibale Carracci, The Flight to Egypt, 1603

My favorite depiction of the Flight into Egypt (including the motif of the Rest on the Flight into Egypt) is Annibale Carracci’s 1603 painting. Carracci was Caravaggio’s arch-enemy, but I can’t help but love this painting. Mary tenderly holds onto her newborn child and Joseph follows. She stops and looks back at him. The painting is a picturesque landscape, invoking a sense of calm, and placing the Holy Family front and center. Mary and Joseph are calm despite fleeing danger, perhaps because they know that they are obeying the directive from heaven.

Murillo, Rest on the Flight to Egypt, 1665

In Murillo’s Rest on the Flight to Egypt, Joseph, in contrast to Carracci’s depiction, is a young(er) man. As I said in Baroque Spain: Devotion on Canvas, “[e]arly Spain was very devoted to Joseph, and glorified him as the embodiment of the perfect father.” Typical of Murillo’s work and in line with Spanish ideology, the Holy Family are a humbly depicted. By doing so, “Murillo made … Mary and Joseph’s perfection, obtained by and through God, accessible to any normal Baroque Spanish parent who might so desire to be a better pious parent.” The infant Jesus is peacefully sleeping and small putti appear, joining in the adoration as the baby rests.

Fra Filipo Lippi, Adoration in the Forest, 1459

Images of the Nativity were meant to begin a train of thought in the viewer as to Christ’s faithfulness to leave his heavenly home and come to earth as a lowly human. Hebrews, the Tridentine Catechism (discussed above), and St. Ignatius all remind the pious to remember Christ’s lowly birth and its significance to the faith. In Hebrews 2:1-10, the author gently reminds to be diligent in remembering the cornerstones of their faith:

Therefore ought we more diligently to observe the things which we have heard, lest perhaps we should let them slip. For if the word, spoken by angels, became steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward: How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? which having begun to be declared by the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard him. God also bearing them witness by signs, and wonders, and divers miracles, and distributions of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will. For God hath not subjected unto angels the world to come, whereof we speak.

But one in a certain place hath testified, saying: What is man, that thou art mindful of him: or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels: thou hast crowned him with glory and honour, and hast set him over the works of thy hands: Thou hast subjected all things under his feet. For in that he hath subjected all things to him, he left nothing not subject to him. But now we see not as yet all things subject to him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour: that, through the grace of God, he might taste death for all. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, who had brought many children into glory,  of their salvation, by his passion.

Rubens, Adoration of the Magi, 1617-18

Centuries later, St. Ignatius wrote instructions for the faithful to contemplate the Nativity. The contemplations’ goal is to

As you can see, humbleness is a key theme surrounding the ideology of the Nativity. The pious are called to humble themselves as Christ humbled himself; to serve as he served; and, perhaps most importantly, through art — to stand in awe of His miraculous birth and life as the Shepherds and Magi did centuries before. Art is a tool of wonder. It serves an emotional and didactic purpose: to present the faithful with the Nativity motif in such a way that it is memorial, overwhelming, and awe-inspiring.

Tags: Art History, Baroque Art, Caravaggio, Catholic, Catholicism, Christmas, El Greco, History, Iconography, Jesus, Nativity, Renaissance Art, Sacred Art, Series

Hello readers! Merry Christmas! In the coming days before Christmas, we’re going to examine the Christmas story, starting with the Annunciation. This is an important event in Catholicism and one of the most popular iconographies in Marian art. Before we start looking at the rest of the Christmas story as portrayed in art history, we should understand this profound event.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ecce Ancilla Domini, 1849-50.

The Annunciation is the moment when the angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary and told her that she was going to have a son who would be the world’s Savior. The full story can be found in Luke 1.

Mary was in her home, going about her daily tasks, when she was suddenly greeted by an angel! This is rather startling and bound to provoke fear and awe: after all, it’s first century Palestine and Mary is alone in her home with a celestial, male, angelic being with what I guess is a booming voice. The Pre-Raphaelite artist Rossetti captured the sense of anxiety and awkwardness surrounding this scene. (Read more about the anxiety of the story and Rossetti’s painting at Smarthistory.) Most artists, however, and especially devout ones in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, treat the Annunciation more solemnly as a holy event that invokes wonder. Gabriel tells Mary that God is with her and she is to have a son. Mary is engaged to Joseph and a virgin and so she questions what Gabriel means. Surely she and Joseph weren’t going to conceive a child before marriage. No, says Gabriel: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy-the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35) This is a profound and marvelous statement – Mary’s divinely born son would not just be any ordinary baby, but the Son of God. Mary understood and accepted what Gabriel relayed to her instantly, telling the angel to “let it be to [her] according to [Gabriel's] word.” (Luke 1:38)

This event is the start of Mary’s blessedness in Catholic belief. For it is here that Mary believed the angel Gabriel. The Tridentine Catechism parallels Mary’s obedience with Eve’s disobedience and relates Mary’s importance in the faith:

The Church also recognized that this divine Annunciation could be hard for parishioners to accept or understand – and precisely, they write, because this is a divine event.

The Annunciation warrants pages of exposition in the Tridentine Catechism. And it should, for it marks the beginning and foundation for the reverence due to Mary. To (ironically?) quote Martin Luther, Mary is:

You can see, to vastly understate, that Mary is a woman to be feared and respected – because of her initial choice of obedience and faith in God in the face of what could be a dangerous situation for a young, engaged, virgin woman. And she is immortalized in art history in a plethora of ways.

In most Renaissance Annunciations, Mary is shown in the most expensive or fashionable contemporary dress, often with a book, which is a sign of intelligence and propriety. She, innocently reading, is interrupted by an angel. Baroque depictions are unapologetically more theatrical and leave no part of the celestial experience of the event out. Baroque works invoke wonder, movement, curiosity, and awe. Renaissance Annunciations are often more subdued – but what they lack in stylistic drama they make up for in expensive production materials that physically allude to the Annunciation’s specialness.

Simone Martini, Annunciation (Altarpiece), 1333. See it up close here.

Simone Martini was an early Italian Renaissance artist painting at a time when perspective was just beginning to be understood and really experimented with. This is one of my favorite Annunciation scenes because of the sheer awkwardness of it. The Annunciation is a large scale altarpiece, one of the first of its kind that emphasizes a particular scene rather than the traditional Madonna & Child. Martini is caught between the stylized icon style of the Byzantine world which had been so popular for sacred art and between moving toward a new type of softer, more realistic representation. Hence, Mary’s awkward pose and all of the figures’ exaggerated but strangely rounded faces. Art historian Ann Van Dijk explains the importance of this altarpiece as a devotional tool:

“By the time Simone Martini painted this altarpiece … the words of Gabriel’s salutation were associated in the minds of viewers not only with the biblical events surrounding the birth of Christ but also with the prayer that had adopted them as its opening phrase, the Ave Maria. … [In the fourteenth century, the Prayer's recitation] formed part of the daily devotions of the religious and laity alike. … Thus, for viewers of Simone Martini’s Annunciation, … the inscription read as a familiar prayer to the Virgin. This fact is crucial to understanding the image’s devotional character, for when taken into account, the angel’s kneeling posture and the words emanating from his mouth become a model of devotional practice for viewers to emulate.”

Caravaggio, The Annunciation, c. 1608

Not all Annunciations were so obviously meant to be devotional pieces that the viewer was to emulate. Caravaggio’s 1608 Annunciation invokes tranquility and introspection into the life of the Virgin and her character in the face of such a weighty charge. Gabriel floats above Mary, who is bowed down in humbleness, as she listens to and accepts Gabriel’s words. Lilies just barely illuminated in the background symbolize Mary’s purity. Caravaggio brings the sacred into the secular world by using models straight off the street and by stripping away any excess or gaudy signs of holiness. As Michael Kimmelman of the NY Times wrote, Caravaggio’s canvasses are

The genius of this canvas, and indeed Caravaggio’s entire oeuvre, is that he makes the divine accessible. Mary is, in a way, just like us – or just like we ought to be. Humble, realistic, trusting.

Peter Paul Rubens, Annunciation, c. 1610

Peter Paul Rubens’ 1610 and 1628 Annunciations are more dramatic. The golden heavenly light that is present in both works, shines down on Mary and suggests the presence of the Holy Spirit at the Annunciation. It also serves to remind the viewer of the divine and holy nature of this event. In both paintings, Mary is young and beautiful, dressed in the fine clothes of a Flemish noblewoman, and like a proper lady, she had been reading. In the 1628 painting, laundry sits in the corner near the table where Mary was reading her book. The paintings portray Gabriel and the relationship between him and Mary differently. In the 1610 piece, Gabriel is kneeling before Mary – perhaps a visual expression of her rank in Heaven. His gaze and posture, with his hand clasped onto Mary’s, lead the viewer to her. She holds her hand up to him, calm but surprised at his presence. In the 1628 work, Gabriel and the putti alike cast their gaze on Mary and Gabriel floats celestially above Mary as he announces the joyous news to Mary. Gabriel is in robes, and apart from his wings, these serve to separate him from the earthly realm. His body is strong and he appears confident, but he is not threatening; rather, the openness of his body toward Mary is meant to welcome. For Rubens, Mary is again meant to be a model to high society, pious Flemish women. She is the epitome of the pure, faithful, perfect woman. These paintings are meant to inspire viewers, especially, I think, female viewers, to lead holy lives and to remember the Virgin Mary and continue to honor her.

Peter Paul Rubens, Annunciation, 1628

Now that we’ve looked at the Annunciation, the next couple posts will discuss the other key events of the Christmas story and how they are portrayed and understood in art history.

In the meantime, check out this (rather small) gallery of various Annunciations, or head over to the Google Art Project to see Simone Martini’s Annunciation and Leonardo da Vinci’s Annunciation close up!

Tags: Annunciation, Art History, Baroque Art, Catholicism, Christmas Story, Martin Luther, Mary, Religious History, Renaissance Art, Series