,THE OREGON- SUNDAY- JOURNAL' ; PORTLAND, , ( SUNDAY. ; HORNING, - DECEMBER - J90S
LITTLE Babe with a sweetly in
fantile, infinitely tender and trust
in? face yet a face plump,
chubby and baby-like, villi small red lips,
sometimes a dimpled chin, and eyes that
glow with heaven's own bine.
This is the face that has peered
through the clouds of time for many hun
dreds of years and has had a more potent
influence upon history, religion and art
than the face of any other child that ever
. lived.
A little Babe nestling close to the
breast of its beautiful Mother, or some
times fondling a little playmate at the
Mother's knee. A Babe that is the incar
nation of love, gentleness and serene trust.
This is the Child-Christ of the artists
a Babe -whose features vary, but whose
divine expression of world-love and world
peace prevails and endures. No figure has
4
ever so impressed itself upon art as that of
the Child Jesus the marvelous Baby Boy
of Bethlehem.
rord babe, if Thou art lie
We sought for patiently.
Where Is . Thy court?
Hither may prophecy nnd star resort;
Men heed not their report.
Men bow down and worship, righteous man.
This Infant of a Bpan,
Is He man sought for slnre the world began.
Thee, IjOtC. aeeept my pnld. too l.ace a thing
For Thee, of all kings Kin?-
Chriatlna O. Itossettl.
B
F.FOKE tho Babe vho nestlod in swafl-
dlinj? clothes in the old stable near the
Bethlehem inn the great lords of art
1 11. 1 1- 1 IT.
nave Kneu ami worshiped; to His
service they have devoted their best talents and
done magic with brush and color.
Their pictures of the wonderful Child
differ. Yet before each painter was the ideal
of the infant Saviour: a Child whose spirit was
humility, who was born in a manger and des
tined to be reared amid great poverty; a Child
possessing the tenderest of natures, knowing
no moods of ill temper, loving His mother with
an unbounded affection, old beyond His years
and knowing, ere; He spoke, the mysteries of all
ages, and the sorrows and joys of all time.
To delineate Him in warm colors, with
reverence welling in their hearts, the great men
of art turned their brush Michelangelo, ilu
rillo, Baphael, (iuido Keni. Bellini, Perugino,
Veronese, Fra Angeliro, loretto, Bouguereau,
Xeonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Filippo Lippi,
Correggio, Titian, Durer, Bodenhausen and
others.
Their paintings of the Babe of Bethlehem
stand among their masterpiece?. These pictures
tell tbe;"world-story of motherhood and child
hood the greatest, purest love story of the
ages.
The love and unnelfish devotion of the
Mother, as exemplified by the Blessed Mary, and
the-intense, clinging affection of the Child
coua in an iui-aijtawou oi me aeepesi
emotions, the truest and most potent instincts
In man. One does not wonder that the great.
riists painted the childish face as though the
work were a religious rite,
Marvelously ethereal is the wonderful Child
of Murillo in his Iloly Family" the Child just
emerging from babyhood. His face upraised in
tha ecstasy . that angels know, an. inner . glory,
' ' 1 : ! ,1- J -"V
4
A
If
La -. iZSfcit
j ri
r
1
'V4
rv
A
Wis-
51
x:
i ti ...
NT
m
B5
AS?
St
OK
1
' C -7
transfiguring the-face!
It-is a striking study that Raphael gives in
his. Christ-Child, in that cherubic infant, resting
on clouds and raising his tiny -baby hands in
half playful admonition. Clinging, fondness is
shown in Botticelli's painting of the Virgin, the
Infant Jesus and St. John, in which the golden
haired. Jesus, clings to His Mother, like, clamber-'
t
r
V
.:.f.:-.:..MU
i
V
W36
.4
a&fVS; J.rJ
; fm
4
v
.X
'1
1
1 :
v.
X
,1
$1
inj rose. JIow rose-white HU face, glorified
'by its halo, seemat ; - v, . .
Because of .the worka of artist like these,
lofty conceptions 'of the - Chriat-Child are
found in bo ' many? homes , and nurseries at
' this eeasotf of the year.' !
Tou "little, children, tn whoe eyei
Undlmmed the light of heaven Blowi. v
Whoee dreams are bright with Paradiae. .
- 'WJioh ioul r whiter than the anowe, V
From holy lips and undented.
Breathe your soft prayer to Chrlit the ChU4.
Possibly, when Christina Kbssetti, in hef
poem, asked, ."If 'thou art He we sought for
patiently, where is iThy court?" she had in
mind these: paintings, of the Child,, who is
, usually presented with the simplest surround'
ings. '.. ,.' ,.f- ' .
': - Most of the painters present the Mother
and Child with some-intensely human touch.
Sometimes the Mother sits with the Child oa
her knee, fields and forests rising in the back
ground. There were so many of these idyllio
presentations that , a Bchool grew up and the
paintings wsre ' known as "pastoral Ma
donrias." . A PASTORAL TYPE
Observe, for instance, Fra Filippo Lip
pi's painting of the adoring Mother, which is
typical of its school. Here the Mother sits,
with folded hands, eyes downcast in adora
tion, while the Baby most baby-like and
chubby clambers toward her, not seeking
adoration, perhaps, so much as a human kiss.
In the distance extend fields and valleys with
winding rivers and rocky hills.
This painting closely resembles some of
Botticelli's, Lippi's master. In Botticelli's
famous painting in the Louvre there is a
background of palms waving against a sun
set sky. .
One of the most beautiful pictures where
the Mother and Child sit enthroned is that of
Bouguereau. Here the Virgin sits upon a
throne, her fingers placed on her cheek, while
she seems lost in deep abstraction perhaps
foreseeing the terrible days to come when
the lovely, golden-haired child on her knee
will be led to crucifixion.
Apparently innocent of all pain, the
Child seizes the boy John and tenderly kisses,
him. It is a wonder-work depictipg childish
friendship and affection. There is the
throne, it is true, but the -two children are
human.
Bellini became famous because of his en-
C7.
,throned Madonnas. In one of his famous paint
ings he presents a pensive Mother, with the Babe
resting upon her right arm and looking at the
world with childish wonder. In the Mother's
face one reads that gentleness and fondness
x which makes motherhood so beautiful. The
Child toys with something, but shows little in
terest in Kis toy. Possibly He feels a sense of
suffering in tho world! His mood, like His
Mother's, seems contemplative.
Among tho pictures presenting a playful
Child few are more admired than that of Dolci.
There are joy and merriment in the little
body springing from the young Mother's hands
with arm upraised, face alight, and eyes spark
ling. Hero the Mother is young and beautiful,
yet suffering has given a somber gravity to the
meditative face, strangely contrasting with th
joyous dancing Babe.
MODERNS DISCARD HALOS ,
Modern painters no longer paint the Moth
er and Child surrounded by saints, or repos
ing on thrones of clouds; their depictions of
ideal motherhood, represented in Mary and the
Child Jesus, are almost photographic.
One of the earliest painters of the unhaloed
figures was Gabriel Max. The painting is sim
ple. It marks an extreme from the over-decorated
Florentine school; a Mother most human
and a childlike . Child.
The picture is restful. The Mother is young
and fair, a virgin-lily of womanhood. The Child
is,, tender, fragile, nestling like a bird close to
the Mother's breast, his large, dark eyes filled
with peace and content.
This is the' final and most simple concep
tion of the Child in art. The surrounding an
gels have flown away. The halos have melted
in the glory of a natural day. The thrones and
pillars-of clouds have disappeared. And the
simple, human little Child smiles at you just"
as He smiled in Bethlehem and Nazareth. nine
teen hundred years ago.
1