The Census at Bethlehem -- Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1566)
1 In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
in the bleak midwinter, long ago.
2 Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain;
heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign;
in the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
the Lord God almighty, Jesus Christ.
Christina Rosetti poem/lyrics 1872 Gustav Holst music 1906
Those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere tend to associate Christmas with the cold and snow and winter. It's likely that the birth of Christ didn't happen in the month of December and there aren't any months in the Bethlehem regiion where "snow on snow" falls.
That hasn't stopped poets and hymn writers and visual artists from depicting a wintry Nativity. One of the first painters to do so is a favourite of mine although I only recently realized that Pieter Brueghel the Elder created several religious images of the birth of Christ and the visitation of the Magi.
These two paintings are a sort of "where's Waldo?" experience because the Holy Family and the Magi are imbedded amidst busy Netherlandish village scenes from the 1500s. In the Census at Bethlehem Mary is on the back of a donkey wearing the telltale blue robe to indicate who she is in many paintings of the era. I have seen this painting in the past and not caught on. The same is true with The Adoration of the Magi even though Brueghel has his notion of camels in the centre of the work. This is considered one of the first depictions of falling snow in a European painting.
Why do I care and why should you? I suppose it's intriguing to know how the events in the gospels we assume to know well are imagined and portrayed by artists in various cultures and settings. The Christ Story is both particular and universal so the poets and painters invite us in.
The Adoration of the Magi -- Pieter Brueghel the Elder 1563
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