Stable or Cave: The Nativity

With Christmas upon us, this post is dedicated - without much commentary - to traditional depictions of the nativity. The following are a collection of some of the author's favourite versions of this perennial theme in Christian iconography.

Only two things need to be said:

1. In eastern iconography the nativity takes place in a cave. That is, Christ is nurtured in the womb of the earth. This introduces and invites a very rich seam of symbolism, both in regards the nature of the Logos, and in regards the nature of the Virgin Mary. In western iconography, however, depictions of the nativity as having taken place in a stable came to predominate. This has various implications. For a start, let us note, a stable is a man-made structure, as opposed to a cave. Moreover, it gives the scene a strong social element, whereas the eastern type is more cosmological. In the west, the stable underlines the lowly social status of the holy family. The meaning of the stable is that Christ was born among the lowest of the low. In the west, the emphasis is less on the sociology of the scene and more on its cosmic significance.

2. Nothing illustrates the differing temperaments of the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox versions of traditional Christianity than the contrast noted above (1). If you ask, what is the difference between the Catholics and the Orthodox you need only look at the following nativities. Historically, of course, the Orthodox remains focused upon a strictly traditional iconography - its icon tradition remains intact to this day. In Europe, the so-called Renaissance introduced a humanism that broke from the Byzantine icon tradition and, in effect, Western Christianity thereafter set out upon a very different journey. 

The Divine Light (seed) penetrates the womb of the earth. This picture shows the usual elements of the Byzantine prototypes - reclining Mary, the Christ Child in the centre, the mountain, the cave within the mountain, the darkness of the cave punctured by the celestial light. (Note that Mary is usually turned away from the baby, not doting on him. In the anti-Byzantine Renaissance tradition, mother and child become sociological figures. Here they are cosmic figures - their relationship is not 'human' in the humanistic sense. It is an important distinction. In the West, people read the turned-away Virgin as "cold" and "un-maternal". They start to paint the Virgin and Child in a loving embrace. In the eastern iconography, however, it signals a metaphysical relationship, not a human one. See the following Byzantine version by Guido de Sienna:

It is not an accident that the Virgin is turned away from the Child.  But it is a non-human gesture that worries the Western temperament which is less intellectual and more sentimental than the Eastern. Accordingly, Western iconography moves to the 'human' and sentimental plane, as we see in Giotto. Real people, real Mother/child, real emotions. The western (Catholic) temperament approves of this:

(For discussion, see here.)

Giotto. Mary doting on her newborn. Giotto's figures occupy real space. Increasingly, from Giotto onwards, pictorial space becomes 'real' space and events are occuring in history rather than in eternity. 

Bernardo Daddi 

Gentile de Fabriano. Alongside the humanistic and volumistic early Renaissance Giotto style there was also 'International Gothic'. This style emphasizes the magical and the mysterious. The darkness of the forest and the starry night - that is International Gothic. Note, in this painting by Gentile de Fabriano, the supernatural light source. The painting is lit by a divine light, not a natural light as in Giotto. This is a wonderful painting. 

(Master of the Castello Nativity.) 

Duccio tries to have it both ways. His version signals the shifting iconography. His nativity shows a stable but apparently the stable is in a cave.

Fra Angelico 

In this version, note the centrality of the ass and the cow and the manger. Christ is central in the foreground (forward centre stage) but structurally the centre of the image is the doorway between the two panels that frame the heads of Joseph and Mary. This has an astronomical significance and alludes to the birth of the Sun Child on the Solstice. (Ass/Horse and Cow represent active and passive. The symbolism concerns the two halves of the year/zodiac, ascending and descending, and hence the solstice as the turning point.) Below is a further version of the same iconography:

The Mystic Nativity, so-called; a painting championed by Mr.Ruskin. Bottocelli situates the nativity within a total cosmology. The humble stable - which is here an extension of the primordial cave - becomes part of a larger scheme.

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black