page_title: Nativity (Christus)
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Nativity (Christus) / Description
context_page_description: The Nativity is a devotional mid-1450s oil-on-wood panel painting by the Early Netherlandish painter Petrus Christus. It shows a nativity scene with grisaille archways and trompe-l'œil sculptured reliefs. Christus was influenced by the first generation of Netherlandish artists, especially Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, and the panel is characteristic of the simplicity and naturalism of art of that period. Placing archways as a framing device is a typical van der Weyden device, and here likely borrowed from that artist's Altar of Saint John and Miraflores Altarpiece. Yet Christus adapts these painterly motifs to a uniquely mid-15th century sensibility, and the unusually large panel – perhaps painted as a central altarpiece panel for a triptych – is nuanced and visually complex. It shows his usual harmonious composition and employment of one-point-perspective, especially evident in the geometric forms of the shed's roof, and his bold use of color. It is one of Christus's most important works. Max Friedländer definitely attributed the panel to Christus in 1930, concluding that "in scope and importance, [it] is superior to all other known creations of this master."
context_section_description: The Nativity is unusually large for a 15th-century Early Netherlandish single-panel painting at 127.6 cm × 94.9 cm (50.2 in × 37.4 in),  and covering four oak boards. No evidence of missing wing panels exists, yet its size suggests it may have been a central panel of a large triptych.  Art historian Joel Upton writes that with its size, style, tone and composition, Christus painted "an Andachtsbild, with monumental, ciboriumlike dimensions".  The distinction between the figures and the space around them is characteristic of Christus's work, as is its one-point perspective. The background landscape is serene as are the "charming, almost doll-like figures who make up the cast of characters."
  The setting is a shed enclosed in the front by what appear to be two stone pillars and an archway, rendered in grisaille. A tiny figure (atlante) hunches at the base of each pillar holding it up. On each pillar stand statues of Adam and Eve – Adam on the left and Eve to the right. At the bottom a marble threshold connects the arch. The top corners of the arch have two spandrels. The Fall of Man is shown in six scenes from the Book of Genesis within the archivolt, rendered in relief.  Two are of Adam and Eve; their expulsion from paradise and Adam tilling the soil. The others are of Cain and Abel: their sacrifice to God; Cain slaying Abel; God appearing to Abel; Cain expelled to the Land of Nod.
  In the shed Mary and Joseph share an intensely private moment before the Annunciation to the shepherds of the Christ child's birth to the shepherds. They are rendered in bright colors. Mary wears a long flowing blue robe, Joseph a green-lined red cape over a brown robe. He holds his hat in hand, and his pattens are respectfully removed, left lying on the ground. They gaze reverently at the newborn figure of Jesus who lies on Mary's robe.   Mary's features have a softness and sweetness more characteristic of Christus's later paintings and remarkably similar to his Madonna of the Dry Tree, according to Maryan Ainsworth.  Kneeling in adoration to either side are four small angels.
  Animals are visible in stalls. Behind them is a crumbling wall with three low Romanesque windows. Four shepherds in contemporary 15th-century clothing are chatting amiably, leaning against the wall, looking into the shed. Two are positioned to the left and two to the right; in each pair one is dressed in red and another in blue. Behind the shed is a small hill where two shepherds herd sheep along a pathway, and beyond is a Netherlandish town with two domed structures in its center, symbolizing Jerusalem and Christ's Passion. The large domed building is based on the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, a replica of which the Adornes family built in Bruges in 1427, called the Jerusalem chapel. A flock of geese is visible high in the sky through the roof's trusses.
  Light shines into the shed from outside through the low windows. The shadows cast suggest the dawn of a new day. The four onlookers in the rear are in light and shadow, especially noticeable on the face of the man second from the right. Here Christus borrows an optical device from the work of his predecessors Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, but is bolder and more accomplished with his use of light, which  art professor Lola Gellman describes as having "no counterpoint in previous art."
caption: Detail of the right archway showing Eve on a pedestal, eating the forbidden fruit
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