A Month of Miracles Part 14 - Healing the Sick

Title: Christ Healing a Patient
Artist: Mathieu Ignace van Bree
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: tbd.
Date: tbd.
Location: Private Collection

Mark 6:53-56 - When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there. As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognized Jesus. They ran throughout that whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went—into villages, towns or countryside—they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.

In chapter 6 Mark is dealing with the twin themes of unbelief and hardness of heart. This summary passage serves as a foil to the rejection of Jesus by the people of Nazareth (6:5-6) and the disciples' inability to grasp the significance of Jesus as revealed in previous miracles (v. 52). In spite of those setbacks, Jesus is widely hailed by the people of Gennesaret as a wonderworker.

Mathieu Ignace van Bree was a Belgian painter, sculptor and architect (1773-1839), who was born at Antwerp. He painted numerous historical pictures, some of which are of large dimensions, and obtained a high reputation in Flanders. His conceptions are frequently poetical, and his compositions graceful. He brought forward some of the most eminent of the later Flemish painters, among whom are Wappers, De Keyser, F. de Braekeleer, and others of whom their country is justly proud

The Nativity

Title: The Nativity
Artist: Marten de Vos
Medium: Oil on Panel
Size: 106 x 75 cm
Date: 1577
Location: O.-L. Vrouwekathedraal, Antwerp.

Luke 2:7: Then she placed him in a manger. There was no room for them in the inn.

The manger was a feeding trough for animals; sometimes these may have been built into the floor. The word traditionally translated as “Inn” may also mean “home” or “Guest room”; with all Joseph’s scattered family members returning home at once, it is easier for Mary to bear and care for a newborn in a livestock shelter outside.

In this painting the artist depicts three little angels kneeling with Mary and Joseph in worship of the newborn Child. The ox and the ass stand behind them. The ruin behind Joseph symbolizes the defeat of paganism by the coming of the Savior. The artist has made the symbolism even plainer by including a relief in the classical ruin - a recumbent female nude, possibly Venus, and several playful little naked figures. These represent the pagan world and 'impure', earthly love, as opposed to the divine love in which Christ was conceived.

Marten de Vos (1532–1603), also Maarten, was a leading Antwerp painter and draughtsman in the late sixteenth century. He spent some time in Italy, where he familiarized himself with the new art of the Renaissance. De Vos was also highly influenced by the colors of Venetian painting, and might have worked in the studio of Tintoretto. This is apparent in details like the lively poses, the realistic approach to the anatomy and the references to classical antiquity. The divided upper zone, one half containing an architectural setting and the other a deep landscape, was also typical of 16th-century Venetian art.