Geertgen tot Sint Jans: The Nativity at Night
Duration: 10 mins 56 secs
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About this item
| Description: | reacher: The Rev'd Dr Grant Bayliss |
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| Created: | 2008-11-30 19:13 |
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| Collection: | Michaelmas Term 2008 10.30am Sung Eucharist Sermon Series - Talking Art: Secular and Sacred |
| Publisher: | University of Cambridge |
| Copyright: | Grant Bayliss |
| Language: | eng (English) |
| Abstract: | Geertgen tot Sint Jans (c.1465–c.1495) was an early Dutch painter who lived most of his lie in the monastery of the Knights of St John in Haarlem . He was a student of Albert van Ouwater and is considered one of the greatest fifteenth-century artists from Holland . The twelve surviving works attributed to him depict scenes from the New Testament in oils on wood.
Now held in the National Gallery, London, ‘The Nativity at Night’ may derive from a lost altar-piece, as many such large-scale works were adapted for domestic devotions, and depicts St Bridget of Sweden's mystical vision of the painless birth of Christ, whose radiance eclipses Joseph's father. The Light of the World is made visible in flesh. And yet this dogmatic truth is conveyed not with the stylised opulence of golden adornment but rather a naturalistic glow, which perhaps reflects the emerging piety of the time, in which humility is the path to holiness. |
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