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The Christmas message from the times gone by

The story of the birth of Jesus Christ, the son of God, who came to earth to save mankind told in the New Testament has inspired many artists. Like film-directors, they have arranged the characters, chosen the sets, and played about with lighting and colors. Very carefully, they have selected the gestures and facial expressions, the costumes and props to create the right mood and express the characters' feelings.
The Christmas message from the times gone by
In the case of Biblical pictures, the finest are certainly those produced in centuries past. The really great works of Christian art were made in the epochs of simple and unquestioning faith.
The Adoration of the Magi is the name traditionally given to the subject in the Nativity of Jesus in art in which the three Magi, represented as kings, especially in the West, having found Jesus by following a star, lay before him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and worship him.
The Adoration of the Magi
Giotto
Ca.1320. Tempera on wood, gold ground







The masterly depictio

The Adoration of the Magi
Giotto
Ca.1320. Tempera on wood, gold ground







The masterly depiction of the stable, the carefully articulated space, and the columnar solidity of the figures here testify to Giotto’s reputation as the founder of European painting. The impetuous action of the kneeling king, who picks up the Christ Child, and Mary’s expression of concern translate the Biblical account into deeply human terms.

Nativity. Giotto. 1310s. Fresco
Lower Church, San Francesco, Assisi
Nativity. Giotto. 1310s. Fresco
Lower Church, San Francesco, Assisi
In considering the pictures of sacred subjects produced in the early ages of faith and simplicity, we must not forget that the chief intention of the artist was to stimulate the piety of the spectator, and not to make a "pretty" picture.
Nativity 
Piero della Francesca
1470−75. Fresco





Each person, angel and animal shows a different

Nativity
Piero della Francesca
1470−75. Fresco





Each person, angel and animal shows a different attitude of reverence towards the infant Christ. Even the magpie, well-known in Piero’s native Tuscany for its constant chatter, seems changed and looks to be struck silent.

It is recorded of the saintly Florentine monk, Fra Angelico (1387−1455), that before he began the painting of a religious subject he fasted and prayed, and that while he was at work on his picture he always remained kneeling. That was the true spirit for the production of works of art which rank as being permanently great.
Nativity. Lorenzo Costa. Tempera on wood, ca. 1490. Musée de Beaux-Arts, Lyon

The Madonna has the f
Nativity. Lorenzo Costa. Tempera on wood, ca. 1490. Musée de Beaux-Arts, Lyon

The Madonna has the facial delicacy which was a feature of Costa’s paintings. 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. What a relaxed little baby! Joseph looks glum — or is it merely his drooping moustache that makes him seem so?
Nativity
Albrecht Durer
1504. Engraving
Staatliche Museen, Berlin

Nativity
Albrecht Durer
1504. Engraving
Staatliche Museen, Berlin

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Albert Durer was full of simple credence in the Catholic Church of five centuries ago. From Durer we get some of the most heartfelt and truly beautiful pictures of the Nativity. Notice the original engraving
Along with monotypy, lithography belongs to the group of flat printing techniques, but this is where their similarities seem to end. Lithography appeared in 1796 or 1798, thanks to Johann Alois Senefelder, a typographer from Munich. Initially, they took an imprint from a drawing on a stone slab, usually limestone, which gave the name for the method (ancient Greek λίθος “stone” + γράφω “I write, draw”). Nowadays, instead of lithographic stone, zinc or aluminum plates are used, which are easier to process. Read more
done by him in the year 1504. Here we see the Virgin Mother adoring her Holy Child, while Saint Joseph is engaged in the prosaic domestic employment of drawing water from a well. The surrounding buildings are entirely in the manner of the artists`native town of Nuremberg, and not at all like those of Palestine; but what does that matter? The picture as it stands is a beautiful one, and full of genuine inspiration.
In nearly all of the pictures by the old masters, on the subject of the Wise Men’s visit to the infant Christ, we see that the gifts to the Holy Child generally consist of beautiful specimens of the gold-smith's art, — chalices, vases, etc., although the Gospel narrative tells us that these gifts were of "gold, frankincense, and myrrh." Many of these early painters began their career as goldsmiths.
These artistic treasures must have been strangely out of place in the humble home at Nazareth where Jesus worked as a carpenter until he had attained the age of thirty years.
Jan Gossaert, 'Adoration of the Magi', 1510−15, National Gallery London

The best of the early Renai

Jan Gossaert, 'Adoration of the Magi', 1510−15, National Gallery London

The best of the early Renaissance painters concentrated on exquisite decoration; they were not interested in graphic portrayal of real life.

There are many figures and components in Mabuse’s 'Adoration of the Kings', but each one is necessary to the whole. The artist obviously worked it out in great detail before he began to paint — indeed, the actual application of paint was only a last step in the process.

Every figure and object emphasises the IMPORTANCE of the Madonna and the Infant Jesus — they have become the center of the universe. But the real world is there too, in the presence of two small (but aristocratic) dogs.

The Christmas message from the times gone by
The Christmas message from the times gone by
The Christmas message from the times gone by
The Christmas message from the times gone by
The Christmas message from the times gone by
The Christmas message from the times gone by
Adoration of the Magi
Rembrandt van Rijn
1632. Paper on canvas. St. Petersburg, Hermitage
The head of the Madonna is evidently done under the influence of Sandro Botticelli, who was two years the senior of Ghirlandajo. The left hand of the reclining infant shows us that, five centuries ago, a baby was prone to commit the modern peccadillo of
sucking his thumb!
The Nativity and the Announcement to the Shepherds
Bernardino Luini
Ca.1520−25. Fresco on canvas

Lu
The Nativity and the Announcement to the Shepherds
Bernardino Luini
Ca.1520−25. Fresco on canvas

Luini was the most eminent of the pupils of the illustrious Leonardo da Vinci. His style strongly resembled that of his master, and Luini has left us a far greater number of finished pictures than Leonardo did. In Luini’s picture, as in many others on this subject, the background shows us the annunciation of the angel to the shepherds. It never troubled these naive old masters to represent in the same picture two events occurring at different times.
Adoration of the Magi 
Bernardino Luini
Ca.1520−25. Fresco on canvas

Нere we find that Luini has ma
Adoration of the Magi
Bernardino Luini
Ca.1520−25. Fresco on canvas

Нere we find that Luini has made the perilous experiment of bisecting his composition from TOP to bottom by a great pillar of wood, and yet the picture is a noble one. The scene which we see in the distance must represent the retinues of the three kings who are already in the presence of the infant Christ. Luini, likemany others of the old artists, depicts the infant as a child of about two years of age.
The Holy Family with a Shepherd
Ca. 1510, Titian
The National Gallery, London

If ever an artist pos
The Holy Family with a Shepherd
Ca. 1510, Titian
The National Gallery, London

If ever an artist possessed the "grand style" Titian certainly had it. In all the pictures produced during his long and active life, there is not one which betrays the slightest feebleness or pettiness. In this picture the Madonna and the Child are noble, Saint Joseph is conspicuously noble, and even the scrubby kneeling shepherd youth has a nobility of his own.
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Adoration of the Shepherds
Gerard (Gerrit) van Honthorst 1590 — 1656
1622. Oil on canvas
Wallraf-Ric
Adoration of the Shepherds
Gerard (Gerrit) van Honthorst 1590 — 1656
1622. Oil on canvas
Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne

This famous picture is lighted not from the sky, nor from torches or lamps but from a mysterious light which emanates from the body of the Holy Child. The cleverness of the picture is undeniable; but yet it approaches the later period when art, pure and simple, began to be supplanted by artifice.
Title illustration: Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration of the Magi (1423) Tempera on wood, Galleria degli Uffizi.

Based on Christmas in art: the nativity as depicted by artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
by F. Keppel, 1909.