Christmas: Nativity Scenes

 Plastic, wood, resin, paper, wire, porcelain, clay, fabric, cornhusks, metal. Do a quick internet search and you'll see that you can purchase a nativity set made of almost any material imaginable. I once made a nativity scene for a bird-loving friend using mushroom birds from the craft store. The base was a straw wreath form. Mary was a bluebird, wrens and chickadees were shepherds. A small nest served as the manger. Three peacocks were placed on the wreath later to serve as magi. The characters of the story are so familiar that we can recognize them in all kinds of settings and all kinds of materials. Even birds. Or rocks.

On a Ventura, CA, beach a stacked stone nativity scene appeared. The characters are easily identifiable, even when made of stones that are still stone-shaped. The stable-ish backdrop is also stacked stones pierced by an oculus window, allowing the light to shine in on the child. 

For additional information on the Ventura stone nativity, click here.

Do you have a nativity scene that is part of your Christmas celebration? Do you have a set that has been in your family? Is it whimsical? Ornate? Formal? Each set will interpret the nativity story in a particular way. One friend bought a gorgeous porcelain nativity set that she doesn't use any more. She says it seems "too perfect" for the story. The niece of another friend was so taken with the nativity scene at her church that she asked for her own "Jesus farm" to play with at home. And many families have no doubt found the odd plastic t-rex, Barbie, Darth Vader or action figure hanging out around the family manger scene. 

There is something about these figures and telling this story. Every age, every culture turns the story into their own setting, telling the story in their own way. As a story of joy at the birth of a baby. As a story of hope because our Savior is born. Every painting, every nativity scene tells the story in its own way through the choice of setting, costume, materials. 

Perhaps the most elaborate iteration of the nativity scene is the Italian presepio tradition from Naples. Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus are in the scene but are sometimes almost lost among the butchers, the fishmongers, the basket-sellers, the wine merchants, the sleeping figures, the clerical characters, the town buildings, and the sheep, dogs, cats, and other animals. Somehow, though, that seems right because Jesus does come to us in the midst of our busy lives and this busy world. Staking out space to tell this story 

During the Advent/Christmas/Epiphany season, you might connect the stone nativity scene here with "Stepping Stones: A Refugee Family's Journey" (2016), written by Margriet Ruurs inspired by the art work of Nizar Ali Badr
.

Nativity: Familiar Details

If you've seen one European painting of Jesus' nativity (Luke 2:1-14), you may be inclined to believe you've seen them all. But what we understand as the "usual" arrangement for those nativity paintings has an interesting history. It has roots in Sweden.


In the tradition of icons, Mary is often shown reclining, resting after her labor and the birth of Jesus. At the beginning of the fourteenth century in Italy, the usual pose for the infant Jesus was on the lap of his mother Mary who is seated on a throne. Magi, saints, donors, and music-making angels visited the enthroned madonna, who is dressed in a red garment topped by a dark blue cloak. The Maesta Altarpiece (top left) was commissioned in 1308 by the city of Siena, Italy. Maesta means majesty, and this piece is considered among the most sublime examples of the type.


On the other side of Europe in Sweden, a widow named Bridget (Birgitta) founded a religious order after one of the many visions she was given in her lifetime. She left Sweden for Rome in 1349 and made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1371-1372. While in Jerusalem she traveled to Bethlehem and received a vision of Jesus' nativity. She dictated the images to a scribe, and her vision became a strong influence on how the nativity was depicted in art.

Niccolo di Tommaso's Saint Bridget's Vision of the Nativity, the center panel of an triptych altarpiece (bottom left) is inspired by Bridget's vision. The artist and the mystic probably met in Naples, where both had ties and where Bridget was twice a resident and Niccolo had a patron and several commissions. Bridget returned from Jerusalem in 1372 and died in Naples in 1373.

Bridget's vision yielded the details of a cave with an ox and a donkey, a single candle on the wall, a golden-haired Mary wearing a white garment, Joseph who is an old man, Jesus lying directly on the ground, and more. Mary's actions are also new. As an enthroned madonna, Mary held her child on her lap, facing the viewer. In Bridget's vision Mary delivered the baby while on her knees. The "Adoration of the Christ Child" became a type after the diffusion of Bridget's vision. Mary no longer looks out at the viewer. Instead she looks at her son, who is so newborn that she hasn't even held him yet.

Niccolo has given credit to the woman whose vision has inspired this work. Bridget is shown kneeling at the bottom right of the center panel. She does not wear the Brigittine order's distinctive fabric crown with five red tips.

So many of those details are things we imagine have always been part of depictions of Jesus' birth. Surprisingly, always is only six or seven centuries.

Duccio di Buoninsegna. Maesta Altarpiece. 1308-1311. Siena: Cathedral Museo dell'Opera.
Niccolo di Tommaso. Saint Bridget's Vision of the Nativity (center panel). 1375-76. Philadelphia Museum of Art. 
For the text of Bridget's vision, click here.

For other thoughts on Christmas, click here and here.
For a view of Christmas Eve in Mexico, see Art&Faith Matters on Facebook.

Christmas: It was, then, not a dream

The story is so familiar. Luke's gospel tells of the journey to Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus. It has been depicted countless times. But every version nuances the story in a particular way.

The version here is by American artist and illustrator N.C.Wyeth. Known for his illustrations for books like Treasure Island and Robin Hood, Wyeth also provided illustrations for short stories in magazines like Scribner's and Woman's Day and for products like Coca-Cola. The illustration here was one of two Wyeth illustrations that accompanied "The Stable of the Inn" in the December 1912 issue of Scribner's (Vol. LII, No. 6).

The short story, by Thomas Nelson Page, opens with Mary and Joseph journeying to Bethlehem. The first illustration shows the couple on a rest stop, where they first encounter the shepherds they will see again. The second illustration is this: a scene in a cave where animals are stabled. But rather than a home for animals and feed, this stable is the birthplace of a baby who casts a most remarkable light.

Wyeth has made light the most pronounced and unique detail in this telling of the story. The light closest to the baby is white light. In the physics of light, white light is created by the presence and full blending of all wavelengths on the visible spectrum. Each wavelength is a different color of light.  The collection of colors becomes visible when the light passes through a prism and the wavelengths are fractured into their different lengths (colors).

Moving out from the baby in Wyeth's painting, the light blends from one color of the visible spectrum to another. Warm yellow becomes orange before changing again to a red. From red the light becomes red-violet before transitioning into violet and blue-violet, edging into the blue of the dawn outside the cave. Many colors...one color.

In this season of the year, the length of days has just turned. The shortest day of the year gives way (today!) to a day where the sun shines just a little bit longer today than it did yesterday. And it will shine a little longer each day. In this season of holy days, our candles offer light to a world that walks in darkness, and we wait for the light to shine on us. It is not a dream. It is a sign.

For additional Christmas blog posts, click here.
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