This Art Guide video is to be used at Step 3: Contemplation of Columban Visio Divina - A resource to help you pray using the images and Art Guide of the 2022 Columban Art Calendar.
Adoration of the Christ Child, Oil on panel (detail), 1523 by Lorenzo Lotto (National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.)
This tender depiction of the birth of Jesus by 16th century Italian Renaissance painter Lorenzo Lotto (c. 1480–1556/57) evokes a particular devotion to the Holy Family that was inspired by the visions of St Bridget of Sweden. In her famous Revelations, written less than a hundred years before this painting, St Bridget told of a mystical vision she had while in Bethlehem, where the Virgin Mary recounted to her the birth of her son:
“I saw that glorious infant lying on the earth, naked and glowing in the greatest of neatness ... When therefore the Virgin felt that she had now given birth, at once, having bowed her head and joined her hands, with great dignity and reverence she adored the boy and said to him: ‘Welcome, my God, my Lord, and my Son!’ And then the boy, crying and, as it were, trembling from the cold and the hardness of the pavement where he lay, rolled a little and extended his limbs, seeking to find refreshment and his mother’s favour. … When these things therefore were accomplished, the old man [Joseph] entered; and prostrating on the earth, he adored him on bended knee and wept for joy.”
“I saw that glorious infant lying on the earth, naked and glowing in the greatest of neatness ... When therefore the Virgin felt that she had now given birth, at once, having bowed her head and joined her hands, with great dignity and reverence she adored the boy and said to him: ‘Welcome, my God, my Lord, and my Son!’ And then the boy, crying and, as it were, trembling from the cold and the hardness of the pavement where he lay, rolled a little and extended his limbs, seeking to find refreshment and his mother’s favour. … When these things therefore were accomplished, the old man [Joseph] entered; and prostrating on the earth, he adored him on bended knee and wept for joy.”
St Bridget’s vision had an enduring influence throughout Europe on the imagery of the Nativity. Lotto has depicted the Christ-child lying “naked and glowing” in a small crib upon the ground while both Mary and Joseph kneel in humble adoration and wonder. In an intimate and familial gesture of love, Jesus reaches his arms out to his mother for sustenance.
