Nativity - the Birth of Jesus

The Nativity - the Birth of Jesus

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This page, some of it showing art which is over 800 years' old, is for a Happy and Hopeful Christmas 2009 for all the thousands of visitors to Paradoxplace each week ... thanks for dropping in.

Adrian Fletcher 2 December 2009

San Francesco and the Origin of Nativity Scenes

The idea of building Nativity Scenes at Christmas time each year was a relatively late arrival in the European Christian Church. It is said that the practice was originated by Saint Francis in 1223 in a place called Greccio, which is just south of the Umbrian border, where live participants were involved in a recreation in a local cave. The unlikely exactness of the date is due to San Bonaventura's "Life of Saint Francis", which was one of the most widely disseminated texts of the later middle ages. Most of the sculptured stone scenes below predate the good San Francesco.

Today it is possible to walk the "Cammino di Francesco" (sic) - an 80 km circular hike around "the Sacred Valley" through beautiful south Umbrian countryside and medieval hamlets. The route includes four of San Francesco's sanctuaries and is run from Rieti. You can live the experience via DVD which can be bought via their website.

The fresco on the left is from Greccio and claims (but is unlikely) to be a contemporary portrait of Saint Francis.

This terra cotta inkstand c1500 from Colle Val d'Elsa is pictured in the superb coffee table book published to celebrate the opening of the new V & A Medieval & Renaissance Art gallery in December 2009.

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We have just been introduced to romanes dot com which contains lots of easily accessible and good photos of Romanesque art in France.

This beautiful example is a nativity in Cabestany, photo © Emmanuel Pierre.

Facade sculpture (mid 1100s) from Notre Dame la Grande, Poitiers

This predella panel from the front side of Duccio's Maestà (c1310) is in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. The bulk of the work is where it belongs, in Siena.

From the tiny pilgrimage church of St-Jacques des Guérets in the Loir Valley (1100s - 1200s) - it rather looks like Mary asleep in the manger!

At the other extreme of church size, this is a roof boss from the nave ceiling of York Minster (Yorkshire), the largest of Britain's medieval cathedrals.

Fra Filippo Lippi paints a more upmarket Renaissance (mid 1400s) Nativity in the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, Spoleto (Umbria). Sadly Mary's cloak has lost its rich dark blue lapis colour, because for cost reasons the pigment would have been painted onto dry plaster in a thin layer, rather than mixed in with the plaster as a buon fresco.

A predella from the mid 1400s by Giovanni di Francesco (Louvre, Paris) - sorry about the photo but the little painting does have a special and unpretentious quality.

A nativity scene on a door pillar in the cloister door portal of Leon cathedral, on the Camino in N Spain.

Unmistakeably Angelico - Fra Angelico (first half of the 1400s) frescos cell 5 in the Convent of San Marco (Florence) and the ox 'n ass look meaningfully at each other.

St Maria im Kapitol (Cologne) - has a c1065 set of doors with painted bas-relief wooden panels.

Top L to R - The shepherds are told the good news; Nativity scene.

Bottoim L to R: The Magi ask Herod the way; the Magi find Mary and Jesus.

Matthew's Magi plus gifts arrived a few days after the birth, but we could not resist including this beautiful capital by Gislebertus (c1130) in the Chapter House of the Cathédrale St-Lazare, Autun (Burgundy). That's Joseph hiding on the right!

Luke was the only gospel writer to mention the angel telling the shepherds in the field "keeping watch over their flock by night" about the birth - West (Royal) Portal of Chartres Cathedral (c1155).

source - "Stories in Stone"

The Nativity portrayed in a roof boss in Norwich Cathedral.

Photo © Holly Hayes, Sacred Destinations

A Nativity and the Magi on a bronze door made in 1180 by Bonanno Pisano for the Ranieri portal of the Pisa Duomo.

Matthew's Magi and Luke's shepherds join up in the Second Typological Window of Canterbury Cathedral (1100s)

Luke's shepherds and a surviving angel wing from the upper register of the facade of Notre Dame de la Couldre, Parthenay (Poitou) (1100s and destroyed in the revolution) - Louvre (Paris)

Back in Chartres, this panel in the Incarnation Window in the west facade is one of 28 scenes in this mid 1100s window, one of the four oldest in the cathedral.

Not quite a nativity but who cares - Masaccio died at the age of just 28 in 1428, and yet had already established himself as one of the most important Renaissance painters. This beautiful little painting (normally in the Uffizi) is called the Casini Madonna, and we saw it at the man's 600th birthday party.

Back to the main theme - Perugino's take on the nativity in a predella painting now in the Art Institute of Chicago. Even in this simple scene your respectable Renaissance artist had to demonstrate their grasp of doing perspective!

This fresco 1508-09 by Bernardo Pinturicchio is in Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome.

This fresco c1476 by Sandro Botticelli is in Santa Maria Novella in Florence. That's San Giovanni Battista (St John the Baptist) doing something active in the left background.

This photo was taken from "Ghirlandaio" by Andreas Quermann - an out of print Könemann monograph which is still around second hand.

Domenico Ghirlandaio's 1480s Nativity with himself as shepherd number one opposite a drop dead gorgeous Mary, and Joseph distracted by the clatter of the Magi and their retainers riding over to join in. This is in the tourist free Sassetti Chapel in SSTrinita in Florence, where Ghirlandaio also included Lorenzo de'Medici (twice) and his family plus another self portrait amongst a series of Franciscan episodes.

Definitely not a nativity, but one of the Dom's favourites who also might even have been married to Jesus and might have fled to the south of France after the crucifixion, and .... read "the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail". Santa Maria Madalena by Perugino C1500 - exhibited in Perugia for the 2004 Perugino exhibition, but normally in the Palatine Gallery of the Palazzo Pitti in Florence.

And just so it does not get too serious, December Man enjoys a slap up dinner - Chartres Cathedral Zodiac Window (c1217), whilst.....

..... at Vézelay a more frugal December Man sizes up his chances with the lintel girl with rolled down top and big .... ears

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