Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:10-11)
Artistic renderings of the birth of Jesus
Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:10-11)
Jesus Christ was born for all people of all times. To illustrate this truth, Christians around the world often depict him as coming into their own culture, in the present time. The Italians, whose visual language was predominant during the Renaissance, did it. In fact, when you think “Nativity,” you probably think of the church art from that age and country—not because it offers the most legitimate representations (they are no more “accurate” than the ones below), but because the Church held particular sway at that time, in that place.
Well, the center of Christianity has shifted; it is no longer in the West. And thus if we were to survey the Christian art being produced today, we would see that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and the settings they inhabit, have a much different look. We’d see Mary dressed in a sari or a hanbok; we’d see Jesus wrapped in buffalo skin, or silk. We’d see lizards and kangaroos instead of oxes and asses.
Historical accuracy is not the point; the point is to see Jesus as the Savior of your own people, as incarnated very close to you, and relevant to life today.
Here are nineteen contextualizations of the Nativity painted within the last century. Each work brings Jesus into a different place, in order to emphasize the universality of his birth.
USA:
James B. Janknegt, Nativity, 1995. Oil on canvas, 57 x 82 cm.
Crow Nation (Montana-based tribe):
John Guiliani, Mary Gives Birth to Jesus, 1999. From The Crow Series.
Guatemala:
John Giuliani, Guatemalan Nativity, 1990s.
Nicaragua:
Leoncio Saenz, Nacimiento (Nativity), 1983. The banner reads: “I come to tell them that in Nicaragua the new man has been born.”
England:
Dinah Roe Kendall, The Shepherds Went to See the Baby, 1998.
India:
P. Solomon Raj, Nativity, 1980s. Batik.
China:
He Qi, Nativity, 1998. Ink and gouache on rice paper.
Tibet:
A thangka (sacred wall hanging) given by H.H. the Dalai Lama to Fr. Laurence Freeman and the World Community for Christian Meditation in 1998.
Korea:
Woonbo Kim Ki-chang, The Birth of Jesus Christ, 1952-53. Ink and color on silk, 76 x 63 cm.
Japan:
Sadao Watanabe, Nativity, 1960s? Stencil print on momigami paper, 58 x 78 cm.
Source. (see two other nativities by Watanabe here and here)
Thailand:
Sawai Chinnawong, Nativity, 2004. Acrylic on canvas, 32 x 37 in.
Source. (see another Nativity painting by the same artist)
Malaysia:
Hanna Varghese, God Is With Us, 2006. Acrylic on canvas, 16 x 20 in.
Indonesia:
Erland Sibuea, Nativity, 2008. Acrylic on canvas, 31 x 23.6 cm.
Philippines:
Kristoffer Ardena, The Meaning of Christmas, 1995. Oil on canvas, 62 x 46 cm.
Uganda:
Francis Musango, Christ in the Manger, n.d. Oil painting.
Cameroon:
Fr. Engelbert Mveng, Nativity, early 1990s. Central scene from church mural. Holy Angels Church, Aurora, Illinois.
Democratic Republic of the Congo:
Joseph Mulamba-Mandangi, Nativity, 2001. Peinture grattée, 70 x 50 cm.
Australia (Aboriginal):
Greg Weatherby, Dreamtime Birth, 1990s? 51 x 64 cm.
Tahiti:
Paul Gauguin, Baby (The Nativity), 1896. Oil on canvas. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia.
Source. (see also Gauguin’s other Nativity painting, Te Tamari No Atua)
The birth of Jesus Christ. Painting
The birth of the Savior is a great miracle! Perfect Love came to us from Heaven and it inspired me to convey a special atmosphere of love and unity in the picture “The birth of Jesus Christ”.
Original Created: 2019
Details & Dimensions
Painting: Oil on Canvas
Original: One-of-a-kind Artwork
Size: 21.7 W x 17.7 H x 0.8 D in
Frame: Not Framed
Ready to Hang: Not applicable
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Delivery Time: Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.
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Andrey Vladimirovich Potapov Russian artist. I am often asked the question: how long have I started painting? Where have I studied? My love for painting came to life in me as soon as I was born. During all my early childhood one of my favorite pastimes was the contemplation of the reproductions of old masters in Dutch and Russian painting. For hours I used to be looking at those reproductions, attempting to capture every stroke. During primary school years painting lessons seemed to me boring, monotonous, without any brightness. The passion to paint a picture awoke in me when we were given a homework to draw a landscape during one of our painting lessons. I was then in fourth grade. Suddenly something inside me was triggered and I started to copy a landscape picture of the Dutch painter Jacob van Ruisdael. In a week I brought the work I had done and showed it to my teacher, but he didn’t believe his eyes at first, because usually I painted worse than many of my classmates. I was just not interested in drawing cubes and balls. Fortunately, that very moment two of my classmates confirmed that they had seen me painting that landscape. I scored A-double-plus. I was so inspired. When my mother noticed my success in painting, she presented me with a big painting-box, oil paints and linseed oil. I started making experiments constantly. My passionate dedication to painting faded away when I was compelled to choose my future profession and decide which college I should go to. In the early nineties it was popular in Russia to become a lawyer or an economist. Having said goodbye to my cherished childhood dream, I joined an economic institute in 1992, and later went to a law college. But all those years I was longing for painting. I got no genuine happiness in my job. Only 18 years later I decided to take a chance and really believe in my dream. With God’s help, having overcome a lot of difficulties – divorce, diseases, addiction- I started painting pictures related to really important matters concerning my soul. Now I am a church minister and have much more inspiration in painting than ever, which is for me much more than just a hobby.
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Artistic renderings of the birth of Jesus
Author
- Angela McCarthy Senior Lecturer in Theology, University of Notre Dame Australia
Disclosure statement
Angela McCarthy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Partners
The University of Notre Dame Australia provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.
A 900kg baby Jesus statue in Mexico that looks remarkably like musician Phil Collins recently became a social media phenomenon. But in considering art history, we can gain some interesting insights into how we have come to this man-like baby.
The appearance of baby Jesus in art, along with his mother Mary, began after the Council of Ephesus in 431, which emphasised Mary was the Mother of God. We mostly see them together in paintings, although there are some famous images of Mary without her son.
In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, from around the sixth century until the present, the child Jesus looks like a little man. The idea behind this depiction is to take away one’s emotional response to the baby. Instead, the viewer is drawn into the more important understanding of the action of God in becoming human.
Part of the understanding of the church from the Council of Chalcedon (451) was Jesus’s state of being as fully human and fully divine. Some theologians interpreted this to mean he was fully formed from the beginning, with full knowledge of his godliness. This was difficult to portray in art and hence the man-child.
This interpretation of the two natures of Christ is not part of current teaching, but it dominated how the baby Jesus was depicted.
Many of those images are quite ugly. The art is not interested in naturalism but rather in theological expression.
In Western art throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, the influence of this theology was also evident with images of the baby Jesus either sitting up with a mature stance or tightly swaddled. The latter was an attempt to depict biblical references to a swaddled child or the shroud placed on Jesus after his death.
In the High Middle Ages in Assisi, Italy, St Francis altered the way the life of Jesus was viewed and experienced by creating dramatic events that showed in a realistic way how Jesus had come into this world. (In most art prior to this, the focus on Jesus had been his suffering on the cross and his divinity.)
Instead of Jesus being part of an austere God at a distance, St Francis introduced the life of Christ – particularly his birth – in a very realistic way, by staging street dramas re-enacting the birth of Jesus.
These were later shown in sculptural forms, becoming the first nativity scene. In these street dramas, re-enacted by local people, a real baby was placed in a crib to stand in as Jesus. It was felt people would be closer to God if they understood the humanity of Jesus.
Cherubic bambino
With the arrival of the Renaissance in Italy from the 14th century, the depiction of the baby became much more lifelike. This image of the “bambino” of great beauty has been evident in the centuries since.
In Italy, a rising middle class wanted family portraits with their babies looking natural and beautiful. The rise of naturalism and realism in art also radically changed depictions of baby Jesus.
Following the Renaissance, Baroque images of Jesus were very splendid and ornate. In the late Baroque, or Rococo style, these images became even more extravagant and sensual. A typical baby Jesus of this period reaches out to the world with arms outstretched, chubby faced and lying on gold-plated straw.
The eventual rejection of this extravagance by the church and cultural establishment from the late 1700s led to the development of neoclassicism, where a more moral and serious view of the world and religious notions became dominant. Mary and Jesus faded from view as subjects during this time.
One effect of the Reformation was the destruction of much art throughout Europe and a huge reduction in commissions for sacred works.
Into the modern period, secularism rose rapidly and the focus of art shifted towards non-religious subjects.
In the 19th century, most Christian art was either reproductions of earlier paintings or romanticised devotional art. Pretty images that had little symbolic content or religious relevance proliferated.
Going back
This huge new sculpture in a Mexican church has been placed on the wall behind the altar and totally diminishes everything else in the surrounding environment.
For the people who gather in this sacred space this would seem overwhelming: the altar is supposed to be the focus of worship but has been eclipsed by the sheer size of the work. Usually, a crucifix would be hanging on the wall behind the altar.
Perhaps most interesting is the way the huge adult face does not seem to match the body. We might laugh, but we could perhaps also ask: is this a deliberate return to the “little man”, a Jesus who was born a fully formed man?
