Arrival of the Holy Family in Bethlehem

Title: Arrival of the Holy Family in Bethlehem
Artist: Cornelis Massys
Medium: Oil on oak
Size: 27 x 38 cm
Date: 1543
Location: Staatliche Museen, Berlin.

Luke 2:1-5: In those days, Caesar Augustus made a law. It required that a list be made of everyone in the whole Roman world. It was the first time a list was made of the people while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be listed. So Joseph went also. He went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea. That is where Bethlehem, the town of David, was. Joseph went there because he belonged to the family line of David. He went there with Mary to be listed. Mary was engaged to him. She was expecting a baby.

A journey to the ancestral home would have fit Jewish practice, so that the custom was done in a culturally inoffensive manner. This was important, since an Imperial tax would have been a painful reminder of Israel's position before Rome. That Bethlehem is the town of David links Jesus’ birth with the promise of Micah 5:1-2, from Bethlehem will come “one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” The association of David with the birth sounds a regal note, even if the allusion is made subtlety.

Though not of the Palestinian landscape, this painting is striking for its faithful attention to rustic detail from the homeland of the painter. Shown after having been turned away from the inn, the Holy Family's presence seems almost incidental to such a loving delineation of landscape. Their identity is secured, however, by the celestial light piercing the clouds in the upper left of the image, a luminous line pointing to Mary and Joseph as they try in vain to secure lodging.

Cornelis Massys (1510 - ca. 1556) was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and engraver, and son of Quentin Massys, the first important painter of the Antwerp school. Like his elder brother Jan Massys, Cornelis was admitted to the Guild of St Luke in Antwerp in 1532, before reaching the age of majority. It is unlikely that he ever worked with his father or brother. Cornelis emerged as a fine painter of imaginary landscapes in the manner of Joachim Patenier, but his figures are generally less successful.

The Adoration of the Magi

Title: The Adoration of the Magi

Artist: Quentin Massys

Medium: Oil on wood

Size: 103 x 80 cm

Date: 1526

Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Matthew 2:11 chronicles how the wise men, on coming to the house, saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.

That the Magi offer Jesus both homage and standard gifts from the East fits Eastern practices; for instance, royal courts there used frankincense and myrrh (though these spices also had many other uses). The Magi's homage to Jesus may reflect biblical language alluding to the pilgrimage and homage of nations in Psalm 72:10 or Isaiah 60:6. Regardless, this homage reinforces the point of the narrative: if God's people will not honor Jesus, former pagans will.

This intentionally claustrophobic composition is characteristic of works produced by the first generation of Renaissance painters in Antwerp. The scene is viewed up close, with half-length, gesticulating figures separated from the viewer by a fictive ledge. Finely wrought goldsmith work—such as was actually produced in Antwerp—abounds. The caricature-like features of the Magi and their retinue reveal Massys's interest in the extreme physiognomic types popularized by Leonardo da Vinci and made available to Northern artists through prints. It was this interest in the psychology of physiognomy that made Massys such a gifted portraitist.

Quentin Massys, also spelled Matsys, Metsys, or Messys (b. 1465, Leuven, d. 1530, Antwerpen), was a Flemish artist considered the first important painter of the Antwerp school. We are not told expressly by whom Massys was taught, but his style seems to have derived from the lessons of Dirk Bouts, who brought to Leuven the influence of Memling and van der Weyden. When Massys settled at Antwerp at the age of twenty-five, his own style contributed importantly to reviving Flemish art along the lines of van Eyck and van der Weyden.