Art of Christmas: Puer Natus Est by Patrick Hunt

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For additional information on adopting this book for your class, please contact us at 800.200.3908 x501 or via e-mail at [email protected] Puer Natus Est Art of Christmas

By Patrick Hunt

Stanford University Bassim Hamadeh, Publisher Christopher Foster, Vice President Michael Simpson, Vice President of Acquisitions Jessica Knott, Managing Editor Stephen Milano, Creative Director Kevin Fahey, Cognella Marketing Program Manager Melissa Accornero, Acquisitions Editor

Copyright © 2011 by University Readers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form or by any electronic, me- chanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, micro- filming, and recording, or in any information retrieval system without the written permission of University Readers, Inc.

First published in the United States of America in 2011 by University Readers, Inc.

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Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-60927-520-4 Contents

Dedication vii

Preface ix

Introduction 1

Iconographic Formulae for Advent Art 9

List of Paintings 17

Section I: the annunciation 21

Pietro Cavallini 23 Duccio 25 Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi 27 Jacquemart de Hesdin 29 Robert Campin 31 Fra Angelico 35 Caravaggio 39 Hendrick ter Brugghen 41

Section II: The Visitation 43

Giotto 45 Fra Angelico 47 Pontormo 49 Section III: The Journey to Bethlehem 53

Byzantine Mosaic Master 55

Section IV: The Taxation in Bethlehem 57

Bruegel 59

Section V: The Nativity 61

Byzantine Mosaic Master 63 Conrad von Soest 65 Sano di Pietro 67 Piero della Francesca 69 Sandro Botticelli 71 Gerard Horenbout 75 Mathis Grünewald 77

Section VI: Annunciation to the Shepherds 79

Limbourg Brothers 81 Gerard Horenbout 85 Flemish Master 87

Section VII: Adoration of the Shepherds 89

Bartolo di Fredi 91 Robert Campin 93 Ghirlandaio 95 Pinturicchio 99 Giorgione 101 Caravaggio 103 Georges de la Tour 107

Section VIII: Journey of the Magi 109

Ravenna Mosaic Master 111 Sassetta 115 Rogier Van Der Weyden 117 Gozzoli 119 Section IX: The Adoration of the Magi 123

Gentile da Fabriano 125 Andrea Mantegna 129 Filippino Lippi 131 Joos Van Cleve 133 Pieter Bruegel 135 Peter Paul Rubens 139

Section X: Presentation in the Temple 141

Andrea Mantegna 143 Raphael 147 Champaigne 149 Rembrandt 151

Section XI: The Dream of Joseph 153

Rembrandt 155 Gaetano Gandolfi 157

Section XII: The Flight into Egypt 159

Ghislebertus 161 Vittore Carpaccio 163 Melchior Broederlam 165 Sano di Pietro 169 Albrecht Dürer 171 Caravaggio 173

Section XIII: The Slaughter of the Innocents 177

Giotto 179 Matteo di Giovanni 183 Cornelis van Haarlem 185 Pieter Bruegel 187 Section XIV: The Holy Family 191

Giovanni Bellini 193 Leonardo da Vinci 195 Andrea del Sarto 199 Michelangelo Buonarroti 201 Titian 205

Notes 207 Dedication

his book which reflects several decades of inspiration is dedicated to Peter and Helen T Bing. As Keats said, “Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.” Helen and Peter exemplify this perfectly. I also want to acknowledge Cordell and Susan Hull, Fritz and Beverly Maytag and Michael and Sande Marston for their love of beauty and truth in art. For her vision and championing of the Humanities, I gratefully acknowledge Carolyn Lougee at Stanford University. For her constant and matchless love, I acknowledge my wife and muse Pamela, who epitomizes the wisdom of Keats. I also thank my editor Jessica Knott for her high standards and peerless eye for art.

Dedication vii Preface

rt is often the voice of the people rather than the voice of the powerful. Christmas art is A no exception. Even if the subject of Christmas Art appears a sacred cow with a hands- off label, it is not above scrutiny. The life and death of Jesus continues to elicit deep and even explosive reaction—no matter how often it is reinterpreted by each generation, running the gamut from skeptical reflection and scorn to reverence and worship. What many call the greatest story ever told—always able to stir up emotions and controversy—has as much raw appeal in its beginning as in its ending. Dogma is not fond of real examination. But art can be looked at from almost an infinite variety of angles, and is in no way lessened by multiple reference points or interpretive approaches. This Puer Natus Est: Art of Christmas book deciphers the many layers of formula and accumulation of stories added over the original terse gospel narratives, whether oral or scriptural. Puer Natus Est is Latin for “A child is born,” from Isaiah 9:6 Vulgate. The texts of Luke and Matthew were merely starting points. Apocryphal texts added color and vigor, folklore, popular themes, puns, and sometimes magical details to the bare skeleton provided in the scriptures. Talking beasts; exotic and extravagant tapestries of costumes, crowns, and turbans; fragrant spices; and all the language of miracle and medieval allegories augment the text. Countless bright angels dressed in every silken damask and wing hue hang above frightened shepherds or rickety stable rafters to signal heaven and earth are momentarily one. Wicked, bloodthirsty tyrants like King Herod compete with Joseph’s peasant cunning. Bridled camels and pet leopards plod along in unusually mobile starlight while magpies joke and peacocks preen. Even humble plants like chamomile give off their allegorical fragrance, symbolic of Christ when trampled by all the retinue of this huge Christmas cast. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh were more than just storied gifts—they marked clear theological reference points for Jesus as the kingly Son of David, divine Son of God, and Son of Man born to die. The tale of the Wise Men is a new borrowed type of Jewish rabbinic midrash commentary for explaining the Magi, as old Mithraic priests bending the knee to the new Christianity, or the subordination of Roman paganism to austere Christian monotheism. These eastern Wise Men became the religious spoils of a theological war that culminated in Constantine and what would become the new imperial state, a church triumphant because it conquered as much by assimilation as by evangelism. Yet, each participant in this Christmas pageant has at least one meaning to

Preface ix Codex Bruchsal, “Journey of the Magi,” ca 1220 be fleshed out, and no symbol is too shadowy for the microscope and the zoom lens of this project. Here for the first time, thePuer Natus Est: Art of Christmas is given its due as Old Masters from Byzantine mosaic to Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Raphael, Bruegel, Caravaggio, and Rembrandt give their versions of the story. Visual literacy is often easier to manage than textual literacy. The eyes register even when the idiosyncrasies of an artist make a story more interesting. While one must still train to observe many subtleties in art, the ability to see depends less on education and erudite training than on the practical reality of familiarity. A bright child who knows little about art history but who is already familiar with a story can often more readily identify its protagonists than an adult overly concerned with an artist’s pedigree and documents relating to the history of a painting. Unlike the child, the adult may have never carefully read the actual biblical text or heard it in catechism, Shabbat school or Sunday school. So Puer Natus Est: Art of Christmas brings back to life the treasury of symbols that were layered into paintings, sculptures, and mosaics for millennia. The great artists desired to be understood not just as individuals but narrators in common of a higher truth than their own lives. They passed along the Christmas story in their art because even though it humbled them, it also elevated them to their highest art.

x Puer Natus Est Introduction

Ancient art has a specific inner content. At one time, art possessed the same purpose that books do in our day, namely: to preserve and transmit knowledge. In olden days people did not write books, they incorporated their knowledge into works of art. We would find a great many ideas in the works of ancient art passed down to us, if only we knew how to read them...1 G. Gurdjieff

isual literacy, unlike textual literacy, has always been the property of common people. V Since its inception, Christian art has always demanded and mandated a symbiosis between word—in this case, scripture—and picture. The picture has rarely been independent of the text. This book has a dual focus. One focus, as mentioned, is for those who are deeply interested in art—well educated students of history but who are not art historical specialists, and for whom Christian iconography is a new topic. For these the focus of the book is on “decoding” the art, explaining its symbolism and formulae. Another focus is to bring out subtleties of both biblical text and art iconography that will be appreciated by those with a modicum of training in art history, but who are not necessarily students of biblical texts and traditions. There is a fundamental question addressed here at the outset, which for many need not even be asked. Others may not be persuaded, preferring the antecedent art of antiquity even though they postdate much of formative Christian art, or those who are content with modern art without any necessary genetic link to the past in terms of theme or myth, or those unbound by any narrative at all. The question to be asked is why should we study Christian art, and the art of Christmas in particular? Many early aesthetes of the Classical tradition, likely beginning with Winckelmann—admittedly biased toward Greek forms—in the eighteenth century, denigrated Christian art as oxymoron, elevating instead a “cult of beauty,”2 which erroneously measured everything against the Classical Apollo Belvedere type3 that Winckelmann (and antiquarians such as Sir William Hamilton) “strongly championed”4 and accepting very few artists of a Christian world besides Raphael as an inheritor of Classicism “who owed his qualities to the ancients.”5 Winckelmann also said in comparing Classical and Renaissance

Introduction 1 sculpture: “Among them all, only Michelangelo, perhaps, may be said to have attained the antique.”6 In 1740, George Turnbull made a comparison between Raphael and the Greek Classical painter Apelles (fourth century BCE), preferring Apelles as superior in his Treatise on Ancient Painting, which is absurd because none of Apelles’ works survive; he is known primarily through Pliny’s descriptions and lavish encomia,7 some of which are repeated early in the Renaissance in Alberti’s On Painting around 1435.8 Even in the mid-twentieth century, André Malraux (1960) extends the philosophical and compositional gulf between Classical and Christian art and considers the contrasts as immense and the break permanent:

On the eve of Constantine’s triumph, all the arts concerned with the Other World, whatever god they venerated, disdained the decorative and realistic arts of the age. Colors that painters in the classical age would have never dreamt of were combined with forms that were equally hostile to illusionist idealization… The antique forms we find in Christian art are not those of Praxiteles, nor even clumsy copies of them; they are, exclusively, forms that now had ceased to have significance.9

Antiquarian preferences and narrowness of vision have been more of a burden on Classical aesthetics than a credible pronouncement against Christian art. It is the reappearance of the old problem comparing apples and oranges as if to say one art tradition (Classical) is better than the other (Christian). But even if only on the basis of greatness in artists and the surviving length of tradition alone, it is apparent that Christian art demands study, though most would see this false comparison today as a “straw man” argument needing little defense.10 MacGregor has stated in his authority as director of the National Gallery in London, “All great collections of European painting are inevitably also great collections of Christian art.”11 Yet in an ironic foreshadowing of Neoclassical aesthetics, the beginnings of Christian art were not so auspicious. Earliest opportunities for art in Christianity had opposition from some of the same Judaic anti-iconic philosophy (Exodus 20:4) by assimilation: “You shall not make for yourselves a graven image.”12 Although the origins of Christian art can certainly be seen by at least the Severan Roman period of the late second century,13 by the fourth century this lack of artistic tradition was corrected by Christianity’s new status as a state religion with commensurate lavish state sponsorship. “For religious reasons, the early church had refused all pictorial representations of its faith, in conscious contrast to pagan idolatry.”14 The patronage of Constantine and subsequent imperial successors alone would be insufficient to change this, but the pent-up creative energy soon flowed in an unstoppable flood of Christian imagery that often absorbed pagan symbolism as easily as other spolia. It was also necessary for assimilation of formerly imperial and possibly “problematic” pagan symbolism that Christianity had a program for reinterpreting (interpretationes christianae) or transforming Classical and imperial motif in appropriate and “compatible” new ways.15 Syncretism was one of the “new” ways in which Christian art developed. A mixture of old and new imagery gradually came to be hybridized, not at all surprising since Christianity reclothed Classical cultural icons. One small example is seen in the Rosalia, the old Roman festivals of

2 Puer Natus Est roses that originated as dies rosationis.16 Although not necessarily only a public festival or series of holidays, a dies rosationis could often be celebrated intermittently in late spring through sum- mer when the graves or tombs of Romans were garlanded with roses throughout the empire. It has been shown how early Christian Patristic writers like Paulinus of Nola (fourth century CE) and Prudentius (died 410 CE) “reimagined” Rosalia for Christian interpretation, juxtaposing this festival with martyrdom as a euphemism in the blood of martyrs in flores martyrum (“flow- ers of martyrs”) and nascentes rosas (“rosebuds”) that promise resurrection in the flowering roses much like the mythic Adonis.17 This was also noted iconographically by Grabar in early Christian art in Egypt with a female martyr blooming in a flowering field18 and added to the gradual Christianization of the pagan Elysian Fields and the Happy Isles of the Blessed, adapted from Classical mythology and literature by writers like Justin Martyr (c. second century CE) as both shadows of Eden and foreshadows of Paradise.19 Additionally, both more dramatic and far more consequential, apparitions of old Mother Goddesses could be seen thinly behind the cult of Mary in hauntingly familiar imagery. Mary took not only the blue maphorion of Isis—again, whose flower was the rose—but like her in Apuleius’ The Golden Ass became titled as Regina Caeli (or Coeli) or “Queen of Heaven,” especially in a locus like Ephesus where the persona of Artemis or the Great Diana needed a deity replacement in a Divine Mary since old paganism was frowned on by the new order. In The Clash of Gods, Mathews relates how common sarcophagus myth images such as the reposing Endymion became newly resculpted as Jonah by the end of the third century. Mathews states:

The impact of Constantine as a patron on the evolution of Christian art was, therefore, considerable. How this affected the development of the image-language is another question.20

Although certainly not the first, Mathews also traces the parallel of the developing icons of the Mother of God with Jesus—precursor to Madonna and Child—to the earlier Romano- Egyptian icon of Isis and child Harpocrates (Horus), where both mothers either hold the child on their lap or nurse the child at the left breast:

The Greeks call [her] Isis Kourotrophos and the Romans Isis Lactans, the mother Isis suckling the infant Horus. This image has resonance in Christian iconography as the immediate forerunner of the Virgin Mary cradling her son Jesus.21

The image shown with this text is a hornless Isis on a first–third century CE plaster gesso plaque at the Hearst Museum, Berkeley. Mathews is not the only historian to use the word “copy” relative to Christian assimilation of Classical motif.22 In neoclassical, modernist, and post-modernist vocabulary, the idea of Christian art as oxymoron suggests that the highest aesthetic impulses cannot be reconciled with the most profound spiritual aspirations. Such false purism is antithetical to history, where it is likely that for most of human prehistory and prehistory, an enormous percentage of art has been undertaken for expressing that numinous other that religion attempts to organize, legislate,

Introduction 3 and probably from which it can even profit. It is more likely that religion—like its close cousin, myth—calls for both the highest and most sublime inspiration as well as the most articulate distillation of awe and dread. That art has been handmaiden to religion, and probably chief propagandist for dogma, is inarguable from history. Any survey of art history at the most elementary level will easily evidence how many surviving works of art from ancient cultures up to the last few centuries have served in just this capacity, and how the best artists in Western traditions have generally always been commissioned to portray Christian narrative in both public and private contexts. So why study Christian art? To not do so ignores a vast treasury of stories that were so well known as to be the underlying frame of reference for almost two millennia. Even when the quality of craftsmanship was not equal to Classical art, Christian art was often rendered with careful iconographic detail and idiosyncratic genius, especially when so much of the historic population of the Christian world has been textually illiterate but visually literate. Even during the Classical Greek Golden Age of fifth century BCE Athens or the Augustan Age of imperial Rome, it was unlikely that more than 8 percent of the population could read and write at all. Therefore, Classical art has a canon of formulaic iconography23 or system of recognizing gods, heroes, and narrative vignettes without the need of text. In the period from the Paleo- Christian era to the High Renaissance, roughly fourth century CE to 1500, or roughly more than a thousand years, the level of textual literacy was likely to be much less than during the zenith of Greco-Roman culture, while the common familiarity with biblical narrative was undoubtedly much higher than today. As has been long stated:

We know that by the time that the interpretation of Christianity had established itself as the artist’s most normal preoccupation, the glossary of Christian symbolism had grown to formidable proportions. And yet symbolism, however elaborate, can never be a mere agreed system of equivalents.24

Iconography and iconology (“study and interpretation of historical processes through visual images”25) are currently under siege. They are now understood as more susceptible to different hermeneutics or not systematic as might have been accepted a few generations ago.26 Nonetheless, art history as a historic discipline still shows coherence to a system of attributes for decoding Christian art solely by images and without need of words, “an open book that everybody could read, the so-called ‘Biblia pauperum’ (‘Bible of the Poor’).”27 It would be imprudent and ahistoric to ignore such a long tradition of artistic achievement in Christian art, or worse, pretend it doesn’t exist, if previous cultures were so tied to the same systematic visual literacy in developing mythologies and their necessary images. It has long been maintained with reason that the Age of Faith was very nearly a religious monoculture in Europe, whether individuals or communities were actually adherents or not. This is especially ironic in light of the wholesale borrowing of Judaic scriptural narratives by Christians that were unchanged and only revamped by being called Old Testament stories. While we still admire Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals as towering edifices of genius in engineering and architecture, even if we are not ourselves believers, why shouldn’t we also explore and

4 Puer Natus Est appreciate what is more accessible than architecture in the greater human presence through depiction of visual narrative in Christian art with the same wonder even if we don’t share its religious praxis and its common liturgies? The art of Christmas is perhaps the most focused Christian visual narrative of all, along with the art of the Passion of Christ and Easter, that makes the greatest distinction from its old Judaic roots, severing a tradition that was mostly anti-iconic and deliberately visually silent by commandment. Because it represents the satisfaction of longing in the idea of God made Flesh, the breakthrough of the divine into the mundane, and an upending of the banality of evil, Advent art can be seen as developing the new tradition of continual retelling of Nativity and the gospel angels announcing to shepherds and Magi alike that hope, faith, and worship have renewed legitimacy. Like all cultures, the calendar year of Christianity was clearly tied to festivity around holy days, saints’ days, and so-called historic events or events that had the status of history. It doesn’t really matter that the formalization of celebrating Christmas assimilated the compe- tition of the old Mithraic birthday of the sun on December 25—three days after it could be proved that the winter solstice of December 22 did not permanently vanquish the sun28—or that the process of canonization of scriptural texts and the many church councils were con- vened not by divine fiat but often bickering humanity to streamline and define orthodoxy when the rejected traditions or Apocryphal material is often far more interesting and color- ful. Furthermore, regarding human decisions, the filioque clause of the Latin church refer- ring to who sent the Holy Spirit—God the Father (Eastern) or God the Father and the Son (Western)—and the subsequent Great Schism between the Latin Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox tradition is a case in point of how a syntax reading and translation from Greek to Latin can create permanent religious divisions that continue to develop their own distinct and competing artistic traditions even in Advent art. Perhaps it matters less who is right in doctrine but rather more how the narrative is illustrated. Without doubt, the Byzantine artistic tradition heavily influenced the Western tradition (especially in the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries),29 even though most Western Christian arts may not always directly acknowledge the debt. The evolution of Christian art can be seen in the ways through which the Eastern tradition influenced the Western tradition, and the gradual emergence of the Western iconography out of the Eastern, with a transition period in the late medieval where both can be seen side by side as will be shown in this work. This watershed time can be seen fairly clearly:

At the close of the Middle Ages, that the major breakthrough in the iconography of the Eastern Church took place. At the same time, one easily discerns the considerable influence that Byzantine art exerted on Latin culture.30

That many if not most of these works of art were often commissioned by patrons such as churches for public devotion or privately by church prelates and wealthy individuals, rather than created solely for the artists’ own household or use, does not undermine the faith of the artist or the commissioner—although none of these were likely to be equally faithful—and

Introduction 5 some artists as well as prelates were no doubt quite skeptical. That the artists were more likely motivated by financial gain than devotion is also not that important. They had to live, after all, and depended on this income and the patronage to survive. In the great ages of Christian art between the fourth century CE to the Baroque era, the consensus of rudimentary Christian faith, or at least rudimentary Christian ritual practice, ran across the whole of the culture whose biblical literacy was probably very high even if it was more visual than textual. Again, although church councils and papal edicts address doctrinal issues and scriptural canons, the role of Apocryphal stories and commonly accepted legends played a huge role in developing Christian art beyond the place where the scriptures stopped. As some have stated, “Images of Christ helped to satisfy the desire of the faithful to more about Jesus than was spelled out in the Gospels.”31 Additionally, others maintain that Apocryphal material still had a profound influence on the formulae of visual representation for Christian art:

Although not in the Bible, these popular stories have had a powerful influence on the church’s traditions and theology, and a particularly marked effect on visual representations of Christian belief… The pictorial art of the church has had such an influence on its theology and piety that it would not be inappropriate to insist that this art formed a Bible of its own… The old iconographic dictum that texts are the influence which led to specific cycles of images and discrete images is undergoing considerable change.32

Thus, creative human imagination often supplied details in the hands of artists; visual details that needed additional articulation for Advent to be more humanly realistic and accessible to those who would appreciate the art as well as the elements of worship. Finally, if we accept the corpus of such artists as Duccio, Giotto, Robert Campin, Rogier Van Der Weyden, Mantegna, Bellini, Ghirlandaio, Gozzoli, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Leonardo, Pontormo, Dürer, Giorgione, Titian, Bruegel, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Ter Brugghen, and many others to be representative of the greatest Western genius, how can we claim to understand their work if we ignore some of their most highly regarded commissions in Christmas art? How can we claim to understand art history if we forget a millennium of its best or most representative works, or relegate such art as meaningful only to an Age of Faith long since abandoned by the majority in a post-Christian world? How can we even claim to be educated if we cannot systematically chart the creative path of a different era whose art, however jettisoned the anchors of belief, is still foundational to subsequent art and myth imagery? As told in the fifth century CE, the reputed example of Jerome can be very revealing. The ultimate scholar and translator of the Greek biblical texts into the Latin Vulgate, Jerome is said to have given his sermons in the old Constantinian basilica church of the Holy Nativity in Bethlehem in such a way that his preaching of the Christmas homily from Scripture in Matthew 2 and Luke 2 could be accompanied by his turning and pointing out to the worship- pers just how the story proceeds from the pictures along the wall above them. They could follow with their eyes what their ears heard and its memorability was thus assured. This is

6 Puer Natus Est how the visual literacy of Advent developed apace with and even beyond the homiletic of scripture. Which was more important? The answer might depend both demographically and numerically on whether you ask clergy or laity. Perhaps it is easier to ask which was more accessible concerning the same event of Christmas, the written text or the visual art? That great artists have rendered their vision of Advent for millennia—whether for public or private consumption, whether for commission as believers or skeptics—requires us to examine this art for both universal and individual meaning, for both devotion and homage to the highest creative human spirit. In this study, although many artists continued the art of Christmas into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—for example, pre-Raphaelite versions as in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Annunciation33—the iconography becomes diluted and fragmented beyond the Baroque, and therefore this work stops at that point. Political allegory begins to gain greater impor- tance in the revolutionary eighteenth century as social issues demand more attention and the Enlightenment leads to the erosion of faith or exposes growing skepticism. That there is a sharp decline in the volume of Christian art and less fidelity to iconographic formulae can hardly be disputed. Thus, the rationale here for selecting the following artists within the following periods is justifiable as offering the optimum range of around fourteen Advent vignettes with the clearest balance between fidelity to iconography and idiosyncratic treatment of subject. Even with this acknowledgment that there may no longer be a Christian purview in Western art, the Star of Christmas still burns bright throughout the ages for many even in the twenty-first century. As G.K. Chesterton’s poetic line reads, Looms“ large and low and fierce the Star” in Advent hope. For those who can find inspiration there, the art of Christmas yet looms central in the fusion of Western faith and imagination.

Introduction 7 Leonardo da Vinci and Giovanni Boltraffio, “Madonna Litta” ca. 1481–97. Iconographic Formulae for Advent Art

ormulae” are present in the art of Christmas by which not only the figures but the “Fvery scene can be identified by anyone familiar with the history of the narrative events in the overall story and the biblical texts themselves. There is a consistent system for visual literacy—a simple definition of iconography—that both literate and illiterate people can still read. This is especially true for theBiblia pauperum, where the textually illiterate could still have pictorial narrative. Any such formulae must also account for the dynamic of change and dynamic evolution of such symbolism through time, in this case nearly two millennia. As Murray and Murray state about iconography:

It came to mean [since the nineteenth century] the identification of symbolic figures or saints…but it has been extended in the present century to mean the study of the way in which symbols are transmitted or may change their meaning, or in particular, meaning in the visual arts.34

Thus, the fourteen or so vignettes of Christmas that can be fairly easily identified and sometimes even dated through these many centuries are the following narrative events, though the whole cycle is rarely seen in one locale, which makes the Advent frescoes at Castelseprio even more important because the cycle is nearly intact, even more momentous since it is such an early date.35 The Annunciation—Primary formula attributes are that Mary usually reads her scriptures or some book in devotion, the winged Archangel Gabriel brings his announcement, and a descending dove represents the child-conceiving Holy Spirit. Mary most often wears her trademark outer hooded maphorion (usually blue) in Advent scenes, the “traditional covering of a Greek noblewoman.”36 One of the earliest known images of the Annunciation is the Santa Maria Maggiore mosaic (fifth–sixth century) from the triumphal arch,37 although the Catacomb of Santa Priscilla (fourth century) and the Catacombs of St. Peter and Marcellinus may antedate the Maria Maggiore mosaic if the frescoes there are of the Annunciation.38 Another image is the seventh–eighth century silk fragment of the Annunciation in the Vatican Sancta Sanctorum. In this silk roundel on red background,

Iconographic Formulae for Advent Art 9 the haloed angel Gabriel—carrying a herald’s staff—greets an enthroned and haloed Mary garbed in red maphorion.39 Earlier Renaissance examples show Gabriel carrying a wand or scepter (or in Byzantine examples, holding the imperial labarum scepter and robed in the richly embroidered imperial gold loros vestment40) as “the herald of God,” where later examples show him carrying the white lily (Lilium album or Madonna lily) as symbolic of the Virgin’s purity.41 Later images include possibly a light receptacle such as a candle or a water vessel, which may represent the “presence of God” and ritual purity and cleansing from sin respectively.42 One of the most beautiful, textually provocative—with perhaps the humblest, most maidenly Mary in art—is Hendrick ter Brugghen’s 1629 Annunciation. The gospel text is usually Luke 1:26–38. The Visitation—Primary formula attribute is two pregnant women together who are often embracing. Elizabeth is recognizable as the “much older woman” who may be doing the actual greeting43 and Mary is the younger woman, her cousin. The secondary attribute is that their wombs are touching so that Elizabeth’s child inside (John) can leap on contact inside her womb. One of the earliest examples of the Visitation is the eighth–ninth century fresco at Castelseprio in Italy, which also has almost the whole Advent cycle represented.44 Perhaps the most sanguine and realistic rendition is Pontormo’s c. 1528 The Visitation, San Michele, Carmignano (Florence). The gospel text is usuallyLuke 1:39–56 and the “womb leaping” passage is vv. 41 and 44. The Journey to Bethlehem—This is a rare vignette whose primary attributes are a woman riding a donkey without a child and a man (possibly with his son) leading or following. More familiar in the Eastern tradition, it is not often painted except as in Bruegel’s combining the journey with the enrollment or census taxation. The circa ninth century Pope Paschal enameled reliquary also shows the journey “with a boyish figure leading.”45 Many of the known representations occur in Byzantine manuscripts, as in Paris in the Bibliothèque Nationale Manuscript gr 74, folio 108. Another Byzantine fresco of this motif is found at Karanlik Kilisse. The gospel text isLuke 2:4. The Taxation in Bethlehem—Another Christmas vignette variant that can be depicted in the Advent art cycle may include the Journey of Joseph and Mary by donkey from Nazareth to Bethlehem where they are enrolled in the census, also called the Enrollment in Bethlehem as in the frescoes of the fourteenth century Karyie Church of the Chora Monastery, Istanbul,46 or a scene combined with their arrival and turned away from the Bethlehem inn (Luke 2:1–5 and 7c). Other examples include the Vatican Library Manuscript gr 1156 folio 277 and the Mount Athos Manuscript Dionysiu 587, folio 129. One medieval church fresco of the Enrollment for Taxation can be found at Curtea-de-Argeş, Church of St. Nicholas. Although more common in the Eastern than the Western traditions, this is an uncommon motif47 and its iconographic representation does not suggest an easy vignette to formulate. Bruegel’s 1566 painting,Census at Bethlehem, also noted above is perhaps the best known work from this vignette. The gospel text is Luke 2:1–5. The Nativity—Primary formula attributes are Mary and the baby Christ Child in a manger or food trough along with an old Joseph, who may be sleeping or just a little distant from Mother and Child. Secondary attributes are that they are usually in some form of a Roman

10 Puer Natus Est Albrecht Dürer, "Adoration of the Magi," ca. 1504 ruin as a stable (although the Eastern tradition “favors a cave” in the wilderness and the Western tradition favors a stable,48 and transitional tradition can merge the two together in a stable over a cave, or has the Holy Family moving from one to the other as in Pseudo-Matthew 13–14.49 It is likely that the cave locus for the Nativity tradition derives early in part from the second–third century Protoevangelion of James 19.2, where it figures prominently,50 although, in fact, as Murray and Murray point out, the gospel narrative of Luke 2 does not actually mention a stable, only a manger.51 Usually an ox and an ass lean down somewhere nearby over the child. TheOxford Dictionary of Christian Art maintains this motif of ox and ass is derivable from Isaiah 1:3 “the ox knows his master and the ass his masters crib.”52 Cartlidge and Elliott show the “ox and ass” visual motif already present by at least the sixth century from an ivory plaque at John Rylands Library of Manchester University, and later easily seen in the eighth–ninth century from the apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew 14, and also possibly extrapolated visually from a circa third–fourth century sarcophagus cover in the Ambrosian Church of Milan, now used as a door pediment.53 Hay or wheat is in the food trough under the baby, and angels are usually present along with a star overhead. Carolingian images of Nativity

Iconographic Formulae for Advent Art 11 often conflate the crib and an altar,54 as also seen in the Vatican treasure of the enameled cross reliquary of Pope Paschal (c. ninth century). Sometimes what may be recognized as Joseph’s carpentry tools are present. When a ruined building is shown conflated within the Nativity building or in a palatial ruin alongside, it can either be a Roman spolia of Christian triumph over Classical paganism or, if Bethlehem is emphasized, the remnants of Davidic glory as in Hugo Van der Goes’ Portinari Altarpiece (c 1475), an Adoration of the Shepherds, now in the Uffizi in Florence, where a Davidic harp is shown on the portal just above Mary’s head.55 Piero della Francesca’s 1475 Nativity in the National Gallery, London, is one of the most celebrated images of this vignette; another is a detail of George de la Tours’New Born Christ (Nativity), c. 1646 in Rennes. The primary gospel text isLuke 2: 1–7 (also see Matthew 1:18–25). The Annunciation to the Shepherds—Primary formula attributes include a night context with a flock of sheep and a few shepherds looking up at angels in the sky with great light (see next vignette immediately following). The shepherds are also often afraid. Secondary attributes include a dog for the task of shepherding or, if allegorical, symbolizing faith. A few black goats may be present as well (or even a wolf) to represent sin or doubt. One of the most memorable is the Limbourg Brothers’ Annunciation to the Shepherds (ca. 1402–08) from the Duc de Berry’s Très Riches Heures at the Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The primary gospel text isLuke 2:8–15. The Adoration of the Shepherds—Primary formula attributes include all the same elements in Nativity, since the Annunciation to the shepherds often appears in the background of a Nativity.56 More commonly, this vignette is presented with the shepherds in the foreground. The shepherds are signified not only by their worship (possibly in kneeling or bowing down) and their poverty, but also by their sheep and possibly shepherds’ tools such as a staff or crook. Secondary attributes may include the ages of the shepherds as old, middle-aged, and young for the three ages of man. One of the most arresting and realistic images is that of Caravaggio’s Adoration of the Shepherds at the Museo Regionale at Messina, Sicily. The gospel text isLuke 2:15–20 (or 2: 8–15 if also including the Annunciation in a small detail). The Journey of the Magi—Primary formula attributes include usually three wealthy men laden with gifts. They are represented as magi[cians] until the church frowns on magic, after which their Phrygian caps are replaced with crowns.57 For Ferguson, a biblical passage that al- lows for them to be kings is found in Psalms 72:10–11: “The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents…all kings shall fall down before him.”58 They may at first be watching a star, or they may already be in transit, walking or riding donkeys or horses (or in later versions, camels) across an exotic landscape following a star. Secondary attributes may include the ages of the Magi as old, middle-aged, and young for the three ages of man, and they wear rich and/ or exotic clothing, often Ottoman or what may be interpreted as Persian. The sixth century mosaic from Ravenna’s Sant’Apollinare Nuovo is not only one of the earliest but clearest images of the Magi following the Star of Bethlehem. The gospel text isMatthew 2:1–2. The Adoration of the Magi—Primary formula attributes include what is also found in the Nativity but with the presence of the Magi or Wise Men now in turns bending knees or bowing to the Child and presenting the three gifts in vessels as gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Secondary attributes may include the ages of the Magi as old, middle-aged, and young

12 Puer Natus Est for the three ages of man and often include a star over the child. Horses, donkeys, or camels may also be present as their steeds and the Magi normally wear rich and/or exotic clothing, perhaps what may be interpreted as Persian in earlier images or Ottoman in later images. One Apocryphal text elaborating the iconography is seen in Protoevangelion 21.3. The child is also shown not as an infant (neonate) but sitting up.59 A further exotic attribute may be that one of the Magi can be rendered as African or very dark-skinned. One of the earliest recorded images of the Adoration of the Magi is found in Siracusa, Sicily (Paolo Orsi Museum), on the marble Sarcophagus of Adelphia (c. 340 CE) just under the tondo of the consular couple Valerius and Adelphia.60 The three Magi process with their gifts wearing Phrygian caps before the Virgin and Child, but there is no differentiation between them. Another early image of the Magi is a mosaic on the Triumphal Arch at Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, circa fifth–sixth century.61 The old Feast of the Epiphany on January 6 celebrates the Magi on the ecclesiastic calendar, now mostly in the East. Perhaps not surprising, this vignette is the subject of more than almost any other visual representation and this may be partly due to the rich commissioners of this subject who often have themselves painted in as wise and wealthy magi in as much self-reference as devotion. Contrast this to the far fewer frequency of images showing the adoration of poor shepherds! Bruegel’s Adoration of the Magi (1564) at the National Gallery, London, is certainly one of the most idiosyncratic yet beloved images of this vignette. The primary gospel text is Matthew 2: 9–11. The Presentation in the Temple—Primary formula attributes are Mary and Joseph and the Christ Child—who is not necessarily now a newborn—in a religious structure that could be variously interpreted as a temple or a cathedral with a presiding priest (or priests) who may be in the act of circumcising or washing the Christ Child. The oldest known image may be the fifth century Santa Maria Maggiore mosaics.62 The famous ninth century Vatican enamel reliquary cross of the Sancta Sanctorum with a probable Pope Paschal inscription,63 which also contains Annunciation, Nativity, Journey, Magi, and Baptism scenes, includes a Temple Presentation just below the central Nativity scene where a priest (or Simeon, or both personae in one) steps forward to bless and consecrate the child in a scene not necessarily including circumcision in this more Catholic period.64 Secondary attributes may include an old man, Simeon, who blesses the child, as well as doves to be offered. Sometimes there is a Jewish prayer shawl (talit) under the child. Thetalit is often white with a border of blue stripes, and sometimes an old woman prophetess, Anna, who is also present and who may be blessing the child. The Rogier Van Der WeydenPresentation in the Temple (St. Columba Altarpiece from Munich is one of the most exquisite images of this vignette. The primary gospel text isLuke 2: 29–39. The Dream of Joseph—Primary formula attributes include old Joseph—a widower in the Apocryphal writings with prior children like James65—who is sleeping with his head in his hands and an angel (Gabriel) who is somehow communicating with him, possibly by a hand on his shoulder. Sometimes the angel is insubstantial or somehow translucent to show he is ap- pearing in a dream rather than in live form. Secondary attributes may include a sleeping Mary and the Christ Child and some form of house or poor dwelling structure as background. There are technically three dreams of Joseph in the Apocryphal narratives—two clearly scripturally

Iconographic Formulae for Advent Art 13 based: one where he is encouraged by the angel not to abandon the pregnant Mary, and a second warning him to flee Herod. The third “dream” may be telling Joseph he can now return upon Herod’s death to Nazareth (Matthew 2:19). The earlyProtoevangelion of James (second– third century) and the History of Joseph (fifth–sixth century) enlarge upon Joseph’s narrative and are later incorporated into the thirteenth century Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea) of the Dominican priest Jacobus de Voragine.66 Rembrandt’s 1645 Berlin painted sketch of Joseph’s Dream is unforgettable. The primary gospel text isMatthew 2:13. The Flight into Egypt—Primary formal attributes include Joseph, Mary, and the child, along with some form of exotic landscape, possibly with a date palm tree to show the context of Egypt and the “Miracle of the Date Palm Tree” where Jesus commands the tree to bend down and feed Mary, as in the painted wooden ceiling panel (c. 1120) of the Church of St. Martin, Zillis, Switzerland.67 One of the most unique examples may be by the sculptor Ghislebertus at Autun, a column capital of the Romanesque Cathedral of St. Lazare.68 Mary, holding the child Jesus, may be riding a donkey possibly led by Joseph. Sometimes Joseph is walking with a staff that may be budding, which follows a tradition that says each of the fourteen-year-old Mary’s suitors left a staff at the temple and the favored suitor’s staff budded,69 and sometimes a staff with a lily as symbolic of his chastity.70 His son, James, sometimes follows Joseph in the Eastern tradition, or they may all be resting along the way.71 According to some, “always shown in the same way, with the Madonna and Child seated on an Ass, led by St. Joseph.”72 Secondary attributes may include an angel who guards or leads them. Sometimes Joseph is looking for food or picking fruit (especially cherries in England 73) or nuts. In Rome, the Santa Maria Maggiore Triumphal Arch (c. fifth–sixth century) shows this scene in an early version.74 One of the most stunning and yet controversial visual images of this vignette is Caravaggio’s c. 1594 Rest on the Flight into Egypt in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome. The gospel text is Matthew 2:14–15. The Slaughter of the Innocents—This is not a common vignette, perhaps due to its subject matter.75 Primary formula attributes include soldiers seizing and killing children in a variety of ways but usually by sword or spear, often in an outdoor setting of a village (Bethlehem). Mothers (and sometimes fathers) usually plead with the soldiers to no avail. Secondary attributes may include a carefully watching King Herod, caricatured as either evil and depraved in a rage as he commands or even blithely enjoys the scene. Several ancient versions—especially of escapes—are seen in a terracotta ampulla from Bobbio (fifth–sixth century), the Santa Maria Maggiore mosaic in the triumphal arch (fifth–sixth century),76 and the Castelseprio frescoes77 that may be dated around CE 800.78 One Apocryphal text is Protoevangelion 22:3. Bruegel’s famous 1565 Massacre of the Innocents is both hauntingly sad and chilling. The gospel text is Matthew 2:16–18. The Holy Family—This is probably the most common representations in Christian art and may just be simply titled “Madonna” or “Virgin and Child” if Joseph is not present. It is by no means necessarily even a Christmas motif, thus should not be limited to Advent or Christmas narrative unless Joseph is part of the image, as there is no direct textual source from either Scripture or apocryphal writings and traditions. There are no formulae either other than having Mary, the Christ Child, and Joseph. The venue may or may not be in Egypt. On

14 Puer Natus Est Lorenzo Lotto, "Nativity," 1523 the other hand, perhaps more interesting in source representation, the Madonna and Child motif (without Joseph) has an antecedent in Egypt. The source may be the iconography of the goddess Isis, who wears cow horns that encircle a solar disc and cradles her infant son Horus- Harpocrates at her breast. This is readily seen in early and late New Kingdom bronzes, e.g.,

Iconographic Formulae for Advent Art 15 the British Museum, London, Isis Suckling Horus statuette79 and subsequently in Ptolemaic and Hellenistic variants without the cow horns and solar disc.80 In the late examples, she is indistinguishable from the Madonna and Child whose iconography she may have inspired. This is especially significant as early Christians in Egypt might have conflated the two females by thinking that the Hellenistic images without horns, and therefore ambiguous, were de- rived from Mary’s stay in Egypt during her sojourn there. The famous Giovanni Bellini 1500 Madonna of the Meadow in the National Gallery of London is one of the most tender tellings of this relationship between Mother Mary and the infant Jesus. There is no direct scriptural reference for this vignette but it could be crystallized fromLuke 2. The criteria of selection of the following artists may seem out of balance when so many great artists are not chosen, and when some of the vignettes appear over-represented while others appear under-represented. That there are more Annunciations, Nativities, and Adorations of the Magi here is actually a fair indication of the volume of choices for these vignettes. As mentioned previously, it is more likely that many wealthy patrons who are painted into the works they commission would prefer to be shown as Magi, Wise Men, and Kings rather than as poor shepherds, though in this study it is quite often assumed that two vignettes (for -ex ample, Nativity and Adoration of the Shepherds) are often combined, which might skew the representative volume of each individually. On the other hand, there are relatively far fewer examples to be found anywhere of the Journey to Bethlehem and Taxation in Bethlehem or Dream of Joseph vignettes than the preferred vignettes just mentioned. What is perhaps most inspiring in Puer Natus Est: Art of Christmas is to see how each artist chooses to either contemporize or archaize the setting, and how each incorporates the formulaic elements into the work or what is emphasized for meaning, symbolism, and reflection as well as for worship. An indivudual artist’s idiosyncrasies of style or composition make what could otherwise be monotonous extremely rich and varied instead by the depth and breadth of imagination each artist brings to the scene.

16 Puer Natus Est List of Paintings

These paintings, mosaics, sculptures, or other media are examined in the following selections, not all of them, however, are illustrated here:

I THE ANNUNCIATION Pietro Cavallini Duccio Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi Jacquemart de Hesdin Robert Campin (Master of Flémalle) Fra Angelico Caravaggio Ter Brugghen

II THE VISITATION Giotto Fra Angelico Pontormo

III THE JOURNEY TO BETHLEHEM Byzantine Chora-Istanbul Church

IV THE TAXATION IN BETHLEHEM Pieter Bruegel

V THE NATIVITY Byzantine Palatine Chapel (Palermo) Conrad von Soest Sano di Pietro Piero della Francesca Botticelli

List of Paintings 17 Gerard Horenbout, Sforza Hours Matthis Grünewald

VI THE ANNUNCIATION TO THE SHEPHERDS Pol de Limbourg Gerard Horenbout, Sforza Hours Flemish Master, Houghton Miniatures

VII THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS Bartolo di Fredi Robert Campin Ghirlandaio Pinturicchio Giorgione Caravaggio Georges de la Tour

VIII THE JOURNEY OF THE MAGI Ravenna Mosaics (St. Apollinaire Nuovo) Sassetta Rogier Van Der Weyden Gozzoli

IX THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI Gentile da Fabriano Andrea Mantegna Filippino Lippi Joos van Cleve Pieter Bruegel Rubens

X THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE Andrea Mantegna Raphael Phillip de Champaigne Rembrandt

XI THE DREAM OF JOSEPH Rembrandt Gaetano Gandolfini

18 Puer Natus Est XII THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT Ghislebertus Vittore Carpaccio Melchior Broederlam Sano di Pietro Albrecht Dürer Caravaggio

XIII THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS Giotto Matteo di Giovanni Cornelis van Haarlem Pieter Bruegel

XIV THE HOLY FAMILY Giovanni Bellini Leonardo da Vinci Andrea del Sarto Michelangelo Titian

List of Paintings 19 villagers clustered against the building in the back center, warming themselves by a fire whose smoke rises against the brick house. A pig being slaughtered lies in the left foreground as its blood is caught in a frying pan, and another squealing pig is being pulled by its ear and against its will out of the house. Chickens peck futilely in the snow in the foreground and alongside other children who throw snowballs at center, as other villagers search for food or fuel—stripping old carts for wood or searching through the remnants of frozen gardens for roots—in the recent snow that even covers the wagons pulled up to the buildings. As if winter isn’t bad enough, the villagers and newly returned outsiders gather like a flock of sheep in front of the town’s inn (or rathuis), marked by its sow-dusted wreath hung from the gable over the crowd. A nicely dressed burgher has one hand out for the guilder tax from a vil- lager and writes it down in his ledger with his other hand. Other villagers beside the counting table watch, converse, or count out money under the bare tree dominating the left side of the painting. The crowds around the inn with all the people in the doorways suggest it is already full. How do we recognize Mary and Joseph arriving for the census and taxation? Just at lower center between the wagon tuns of beer and the frozen pond, a bent Joseph pulls the tow rope of the traditional gray ass with the brown ox alongside, and a very pregnant Mary sits on the donkey in her blue maphorion cape—here thick wool—that covers her against the cold. She apparently carries a basket of their earthly belongings and Joseph also carries a smaller basket. As a carpenter by trade, Joseph carries a long saw over his left shoulder. This family hardly looks Davidic in lineage, but then no one else in the village does either. This entire village is oblivious of who has arrived in their midst. Not a soul appears to have noticed the weary couple. This is unusual for even distant cousins and relatives in a small village—usually known for their small-town nosiness and xenophobic hostility—but here we see total indifference. This may be caused by the distracting excitement of the census, or to the villagers’ concentration on surviving in winter or, most likely, due to Joseph and Mary’s residing in Nazareth far to the north. As Stechow noted, the squalid hut at the center right may be the place where Mary is relegated to give humble birth, finding no room at the inn at bottom left, as Luke 2:1–5 and 7c mentions, thus doubling both aspects of this Bethlehem narrative. Evidence for this small isolated hut as the context for the Nativity may come from its small cross fixed to the front left eave. This would be just like Bruegel to doubly suggest the future with a tiny detail. (Musées Royaux de Beaux-Arts, Brussels)

60 Puer Natus Est