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| Adoration of the Shepherds – Gerard van Honthorst – 1622 |
So much beauty revolves around the birth of the Savior – especially in art and music. I’m still walking around singing “Messiah” in my head. I figured I would take a minute and share my two favorite Christmas paintings with you, ‘cuz I’m all cultured and everything.
2nd Place (Was my 1st place until a couple years ago.)
Adoration of the Shepherds by Rembrandt van Rijn. Painted in 1646, there are others attributed to Rembrandt and some of his students, but this is my favorite. I love how dark it is, with the main source of light emanating from the Holy Infant Jesus. Of course, I’m a big-time Rembrandt fan. Whenever I go into a museum that houses any of his work, it is the first place I go.
1st Place
Flight Into Egypt by Henry Ossawa Tanner. Tanner was an American painter, who focused on religious themes. He painted this in 1923. He also painted the beautiful picture I used in the post about the angel Gabriel, here.
OK, so it isn’t really a Christmas painting. it depicts Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus fleeing to Egypt to avoid the slaughter of the innocents at Herod’s decree.- even so, I think it feels like a Christmas painting.
I also have a story about when I first saw this painting. Once when I was traveling to Africa, I had a full day layover in NYC. I hopped on the subway and rode it to the city. I decided to kill most of the day in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I went straight to the Rembrandts, and then just wandered around.
There was some construction going on at the museum, and one of the main staircases was closed, so I found a stairwell back in one of the corners and started down to the ground floor. When I reached the landing between floors, there were two paintings on the wall of the staircase. The first was this:
I kid you not. It was the actual Washington Crossing the Delaware painting. In a stairwell. I was stunned. But on the wall next to it, much smaller, was the painting that “spoke” to me. I stared at it longer than any other painting I have ever seen. I jotted down the title. And one day, when I feel rich enough, I’m going to buy a print of it. Remember, art is highly subjective, but I adore this painting.
Flight Into Egypt
Odds are that you won’t agree, and I’m sure some of you will wonder why I don’t have any pictures of Santa and baby Jesus, but that is a discussion for another day.
For more info on the Flight Into Eqypt, here is the Met’s webpage.
Thanks, MMM! I had skimmed this earlier, but I swear when I posted my Henry Vaughan poem about the Nativity and Light, I wasn’t thinking of this posting. When I googled “Nativity Light,” the first pic that popped up was that van Honthorst. Your Rembrandt would have worked well, too. But good job! Merry Christmas!
I don’t have a favorite Baby Jesus painting. And as an Art History major, that seems all wrong.
I do have a favorite Grown Up Jesus picture, though. “Doubting Thomas” by Caravaggio.
I hate Santa and baby Jesus pics. I turn my nose up at those.
I love Joseph Brickey’s “Journey to Bethlehem.”
http://blog.beliefnet.com/simplelife/files/2011/12/Mary-on-donkey.jpg
Joseph is focused on his task: keep Mary safe. Get to Bethlehem before the baby comes. Lead the donkey.
Mary, holding her womb protectively sees a shepherd boy- they stare at each other quietly. I imagine she was seeing her son in his face — the Shepherd of us all. She’s doing what she did best, which is quiet contemplation.
The boy is shyly looking at them, trying not to rudely stare, but how could he not feel the Spirit residing inside of such a young and beautiful girl?
As a mother, and especially as a woman 9 weeks from giving birth to another son, this painting just overwhelms me. There is a copy hanging in our Relief Society room and I love looking at it all year long…
These are nice choices, both, partly because it’s hard to go wrong with Rembrandt. I have a new favorite Christmas painting: Brian Kershisnik’s “Nativity.” It’s a big, big canvas now hanging in the BYU Museum of Art, and if you (collectively speaking to all those within driving distance of BYU here) haven’t driven over to see it, well, you should repent immediately.
I must admit that I feel a little skittish about recommending it so highly: he’s contemporary, he’s a Utah artist, and, well, those are my big reservations. But the painting is absolutely marvelous no matter who painted it or when.
Here’s what to love about the paintings: Mary is so human and quiet and lovely. Her cheeks are still flushed from the physical exertion. The two midwives who are looking lovingly at the baby, reverently as women do after the birth is over and the Spirit softly fills the room. I love how they are washing the blood off their hands: it isn’t the focus of the painting, but it emphasizes the mortality of the Savior. The Christ himself is tiny, tiny, like a real newborn.
I love Joseph in the painting. When I took my children to see it we talked about what he must be feeling, why he is covering one eye, why he is on the other side of the fence, and what it meant that he still held hands with Mary as she nursed the child and talked with the midwives.
But then there are the angels. So many, many angels crowding, pointing, gasping, crying, proclaiming, praising. They zoom across the painting: young and old and male and female. I love the angel babies. I love them because they radiate joy, but not a joy that the mortals hear. I love them because I imagine that I might have been one of them. I imagine that we were all there, given a field-trip from the pre-mortal realm to glimpse our elder brother’s mortal body — we knew that it had begun and he would live and eventually die to save us all.
Seriously, go and see this painting — before Christmas if you can. If you can’t, then I believe it is on the artist’s webpage (http://kershisnik.com/change-image.php?current_image=20 — or if the URL doesn’t work, visit kershisnik dot com and look at the 2006 images. It’s at the bottom of the page). The web images don’t do it justice, though. That’s true of all paintings, of course, but the magnitude of this one makes it especially true. Also, BYU has not relegated this to a staircase: it’s the most prominent piece in the whole museum at present.
In fact, I think I might head over this afternoon just to enjoy it again.
I thought we already had the discussion about Jesus and Santa…
Nice choices. I like that last one too. I’ve never seen it before.
Sandy
Nothing conveys a message like a beautiful painting or a beautiful piece of music. Thank you for sharing. And I think I need to visit some stairwells!
Ah, the Met… They put the most beautiful paintings in the most obscure places. “Flight into Egypt” is indeed beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
You’re making me miss art with this post! When I first started college, I was a humanities major but and art history professor named Professor Vlam( I kid you not) killed it for me. I haemoglobin to say I haven’t ever seen these paintings but I love them.
And I’d love to spend a day at an art museum again.