The Twelve Days of Christmas - Day 6

Title: Creator of Heaven and Earth
Artist: James B. Janknegt
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 90 X 60 cm
Date: 2010
Location: Property of the artist.

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, six geese a laying...

The six geese a laying are said to represent the six days of creation. In this painting by Texas native James B. Janknegt, the six days are represented in an arc around a depiction of the Holy Trinity:

- Day 1 - God created light and separated it from the darkness, calling light "day" and darkness "night."
- Day 2 - God created an expanse to separate the waters and called it "sky."
- Day 3 - God created the dry ground and gathered the waters, calling the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters "seas." On day three, God also created plants and trees.
- Day 4 - God created the sun, moon, and the stars to give light to the earth and to govern and separate the day and the night.
- Day 5 - God created every creature of the seas and every winged bird.
- Day 6 - God created the animals to fill the earth. God also created man and woman, blessed them and gave them every creature and the whole earth to rule over, care for, and cultivate.

The Trinity with the Dead Christ

Title: The Trinity with the Dead Christ

Artist: Ludovico Carracci

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 173 x 127 cm

Date: c. 1590

Location: Pinacoteca, Vatican.

According to the Trinity doctrine, God exists as three persons, or hypostases, but is one single divine nature. Some faiths profess that, in addition, the second person of the Trinity — God the Son — assumed human nature as Jesus, so that he has two natures (and hence two wills), and is really and fully both true God and true human. As stated in the Chalcedonian Creed: “truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and body”.

In this painting Lodovico managed to express the transcendent in terms of great intimacy and sincere humanity, qualities that were to be indispensable in the formation of artists such as the young Guercino. The subject, very unusual at the time of the Counter-Reformation, goes back to a purely medieval iconographic idea. Instead of the traditional, hierarchical representation of the Trinity, Lodovico combines this theme with a scene of the Pieta, in which Christ is received into the Father's arms rather than those of the Virgin.

Ludovico (or Lodovico) Carracci (April 1555 – November 1619) was an Italian, early-Baroque painter, etcher, and printmaker born in Bologna. The Carracci was a family of Bolognese painters, the brothers Agostino (1557-1602) and Annibale (1560-1609) were cousins of Lodovico, and were prominent figures at the end of the 16th century in the movement against the prevailing Mannerist artificiality of Italian painting. Lodovico was by temperament a fairly shy person who never found real success, unlike his cousin Annibale. Lodovico left Bologna only for brief periods and directed the Carracci academy by himself after his cousins left for Rome. His work, at its best, is highly personal and has a passionate and poetic quality.

The Coronation of Mary

Title: The Coronation of Mary

Artist: Enguerrand Charonton

Medium: Oil on panel

Size: 183 x 220 cm

Date: 1454

Location: Hospice, Villeneuve-les-Avignon.

Mary, Queen of All Saints, usually referred to by Christians as the Virgin Mary or Saint Mary, was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee. The New Testament describes her as the mother of Jesus Christ, and that she conceived her son miraculously by the agency of the Holy Spirit while still a virgin. A number of important doctrines concerning Mary are held by Christian churches. Some Christian denominations, including the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, believe that Mary lived a sinless life, offer prayers to God through Mary and venerate her as intercessor and mother of the church. Most Protestants, however, do not follow these devotions.

Queen of Heaven is a title given Mary by mainly Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Orthodox Churches, to whom the title is a consequence of the First Council of Ephesus in 431, where the Virgin Mary was proclaimed Theotokos, literally, the "God-bearer", or "Mother of God". Catholic teaching on this subject is expressed in the papal encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam, which states that Mary is Queen of heaven because her son Jesus is King of Israel and heavenly king. In Hebrew tradition the mother of the king is queen. The title Queen of Heaven has long been a Catholic tradition, included in prayers and devotional literature, and seen in Western art from the High Middle Ages, long before it was given more formal status by the Church.

In this depiction of the Coronation of Mary, the decorative figure of the Virgin, floating in gold and red brocade in the middle distance, is flanked by God the Father and by Jesus, both depicted as men of the same age, with the same facial characteristics and clothes. On their right and left a multitude of smaller figures of the blessed angels, young children, monks, bishops, kings and popes, and the common folk adore the heavenly scene before them. Below, in a long miniature scene, Christ is raised up on high on the cross with the donor kneeling at its foot. The Madonna is perhaps the most typically French creature in mediaeval French painting, a lovely woman with narrow eyes, a delicate face and slightly long nose. There are innumerable details in this painting which charm, and the mastery of the individuality of each of the human characters, the skill in the creation of the landscape, and great fusion of these numerous elements commands admiration.

Enguerrand Charonton (or Quarton), (c. 1410, Laon, - 1461, Avignon) was a French painter. Though his career is unusually well documented for a provincial artist of his date, there are only two extant works that are certainly by him. These are the Virgin of Mercy (1452), and the Coronation of the Virgin (1454) in the Muse de l Hospice at Villeneuve-les-Avignon. They are both highly impressive works, uniting Flemish and Italian influence and having something of the monumental character of the sculpture of Charonton’s region.

Unknown (Kingdom of Heaven)

Title: Unknown (Kingdom of Heaven)

Artist: Unknown (Japanese)

Medium: paint on parchment

Size: 20 x 30 cm

Date: c. 18^th century

Location: Ikitsuki museum, Hirado.

After the brutal Japanese prohibition of Christianity in 1614, most images and icons were used only to ferret out Christians hiding among the populace. Officials would make everyone in an area step on a Christian image to prove they were not adherents of the faith. These images were called fumie, and usually depicted Christ, Mary and crosses. In response to this oppression some groups, mainly on the northwest coast of Kyushu and some small coastal islands, maintained the Christian faith in secret until in 1873, when under pressure from Western powers the freedom of worship is restored. These groups who prevailed against state oppression became know as Kakure Kirishitan (hidden Christians).

Images created by Japanese Christians are scant due, in most part, to the relentless persecution they faced. Figures of the saints and the Virgin Mary that were made skillfully exploited the similarities between Catholicism and Buddhism and were transformed into figurines that looked like the traditional statues of the Buddha and Buddhist Bodhisattavas. Prayers were adapted to sound like Buddhist prayers, yet retained many untranslated words from Latin, Portuguese and Spanish. The Bible was passed down orally, due to fears of printed works being confiscated by authorities. Scrolls and artwork not disguised were hidden and passed down through generations in secret Christian families.

The scroll shown here was created anonymously, and shows the Japanese impressions of the Christian teachings, with God the father, Mary and Jesus, and a winged angel to the left. The traditional European imagery is well represented, from the swirling and parting of heavenly clouds to the angels feathered wings.

In modern times, with the economic condition pulling the youth away from remote areas, many of the Kakure Kirishitan groups are thinning or even disbanding. Further, many of the families who used to be Kakure Kirishitan have rejoined the Catholic Church, or given up the faith entirely.

Holy Trinity

Title: Holy Trinity

Artist: Jusepe de Ribera

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 226 × 118 cm

Date: 1636

Location: Museo del Prado, Madrid.

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity teaches the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead. In this painting Ribera has depicted the three in their traditional guises: God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the dove of the Holy Spirit.

Ribera was a great exponent of Caravaggism, and his rise to prominence in Naples further entrenched Caravaggism as the dominant mode there. With the Holy Trinity, however, he had moved further from Caravaggio's example, lightening his palette and increasing the painterliness of his brushwork. Ribera still employed the distinct shift between light and dark, most notably around the figure of Jesus, which allows the nimbus around God the Father to radiate.

Jusepe de Ribera (January 12, 1591 - September 2, 1652) was a Spanish painter and printmaker, also known in Spanish as José de Ribera. Almost nothing is known of his training in Spain, although it is possible, as some experts have suggested, that he had some contact with Francisco Ribalta. In Italy, where all his mature work was done, he was known as Giuseppe Ribera or Lo Spagnoletto, "the Little Spaniard". By 1644 he was so renowned that he was knighted by the pope.