The Nativity at Night

The Nativity of Christ is painted on three boards of oak that are glued together vertically. The panel was likely once the central image of a medium-sized triptych the wings of which have not survived. The upper part of the panel may have been slightly altered to its present shape. The painting can be attributed to Jan Joest van Kalkar, a painter from Wesel (Germany), on stylistic grounds¹. It shows similarities with the wings of an altarpiece in St. Nicolai in Kalkar, which Jan Joest is documented to have painted between 1505/6 and 1508/9. However, the complex architecture of the building in which the Nativity takes place and the extensive Renaissance ornaments suggests a dating around 1515 or later, towards the end of the painter’s career.

The painting reveals that by then Jan Joest van Kalkar remained deeply rooted in older artistic traditions but also absorbed some of the artistic innovations in the paintings produced in Antwerp in the beginning of the 16th century, then the flourishing artistic center of the North. By this time Jan Joest had clearly been exposed to the so-called Antwerp Mannerist school, which flourished in the first decades of the 16th century in Antwerp and in the neighbouring Northern Provinces of the Low Countries. Hendrik van Wuleuwe (the so-called Master of Frankfurt), Jan van Doornicke (the so-called Master 1518), Jan de Beer, Adriaen van Overbeke and various anonymous painters like the master of the Antwerp Adoration or the Master or Amiens are characteristic representatives of this school; they run successful collaborative workshops which often shared compositional models and produced highly standardized altarpieces that were exported to France, the Lower Rhine Area and even to Scandinavia and the Baltic sea². Their style is typically characterized by its elongated figures, elaborate compositions, ornamental detail linked to decorative elements of the Italian Renaissance, contrasting use of colors, and often theatrical presentation of biblical scenes.

In Joest’s Nativity panel, the dynamic interplay of light and shadow, the dramatic setting within a ruined architectural framework, and the expressive gestures of the figures reflect some of the Mannerists’ interest in heightened visual drama and ornate design. Although Joest maintained a more sober and contemplative approach compared to the exuberance of full-fledged Antwerp Mannerism, his painting demonstrates the absorption of some of its key visual strategies, such as complex spatial arrangements and an emphasis on decorative effects.

Jan Joest conceived his Nativity as a nocturnal event, staged within the ruins of a monumental pagan temple that are reminiscent of the ruins of ancient Rome. In the center of the composition, the newborn Child lies naked on the tiled floor while Mary kneels on the right and adores the infant. On the left, Joseph holds his hat in his hands and directs his gaze towards an angel, seen from behind, who with his wings wide open approaches from above. Several angels, some of whom have their hands folded in prayer, press forward to catch a glimpse of the newborn Savior. On the left an Annunciation to the Shepherds is depicted in the background; one single shepherd is shown in front of the table as he witnesses the holy event. In the background on the right, two more shepherd approach through the rear of scene, where Joseph has lit a candle. The presence of the shepherds alludes to the Adoration of the Shepherds a subject that was sometimes depicted in cycles of the Infancy of Christ as well as in Prayerbooks.

The dominating light of this nightly scene, however, isn’t Joseph’s candle but emanates from the body of the newborn Christ child. The halo surrounding the Infant symbolizes its Divine nature; it illuminates the entire composition and outshines the beautiful twilight above the landscape. The reflection of the glowing body submerges parts of the surrounding architecture in light which form a dramatic contrast with those parts that remain in the shadow of the night; the illumination greatly enhances the figurative reliefs of the pillars’ capitals and highlights the Renaissance Ornaments of the architecture. The illuminated upper parts of the ruin stand out against the hovering angel, shown from behind, who approaches the scene form above and who is seen against the light; the back of his body is entirely in the shadow but is contours appear to be glowing since the divine light shines in his face.

At the top of the ruin, just below an architectural shell, a statue of a winged woman emerges above the winged head of a sculpted angel: It could be understood as an allusion to the immortal soul and as such relate to the Christian promise of Salvation, or it could be seen as a reference to a pagan cult. Following pictorial traditions well established in the fifteenth century Jan Joest included a figurative representation on the right capital which can be identified as Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. The Old Testament event was commonly understood as a prefiguration of Christ’s sacrificial death on the Cross.

Light is an essential element of the composition: Jan Joest uses it convincingly to increase the dramatic narrative of the scene and to create a dynamic chiaroscuro of colored garments. He achieves this effect effortlessly by highlighting the peats of the various and by contrasting them with the folds in the shadow.

The light emanating from the Infant transcends beyond the central event and illuminates the face of a praying shepherd who is kneeling in front of the ruins on the left side. The Ox shown on the right side of the painting is also receiving his share of the divine light whereas the ass remains in the shadow and therefore ignorant to the birth of the Savior.

The Nativity is a theme of paramount importance in Christian iconography and Northern Renaissance painters often chose to include the scene as part of pictorial cycles devoted to the Life of Mary or the Infancy of Christ. During the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, the image could also serve as central image of smaller altarpieces used for private devotion in family chapels or private oratories

The popularity of the subject during the later Middle Ages contrasts with the limited attention that the event receives in the bible. The Birth of Christ is given some consideration in the Gospel of Luke (1:1-20), whereas Matthew’s account is very brief (Matth. 1: 18-25); the Gospels of Mark nor John do not mention it altogether. This narrative vacuum inspired early Christian authors between the 1^st and the 7^th century in some apocryphal texts to embellish the Nativity with various narrative details such as the Ox and the Ass which also refer to the prophecies of Isaiah. This and other anecdotes were incorporated during the thirteenth century in Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda Aurea, a compendium of biblical events and the lives of the Saints which remained popular throughout the later Middle-ages. The most influential accounts of the birth of Christ, however, were included in the 13^th century visions of a Franciscan monk known as the Meditationes vitae Christi and those of the fourteenth-century Mystic Bridget of Sweden³. Full of narrative details, St. Bridget’s highly influential account of the event appealed greatly to the curiosity of the medieval mind and included the witnessing of the Virgin’s instant birth as well as the “great and ineffable light” that she saw emanating from the newborn child⁴.

Saint Bridget’s vision proved to be a source of inspiration for painters the Low Countries and elsewhere in Europe and had a particular strong impact on the iconography of Nativity-Scenes since the second quarter of the fifteenth Century. Much of 14^th and early 15^th century Nativities followed ancient Byzantine prototypes that depicted the Virgin lying on a bed and thereby reflected common experiences of childbirth⁵. This changed with Bridget of Sweden: Robert Campin’s Nativity (Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, c. 1430/5), for example, shows the Virgin – unharmed by labors – kneeling in front of the newborn Child who lies on the floor, surrounded by golden beams as symbol for the divine light. The crowded event takes place in front of a simple, worn-out barn, with shepherds, angels and two midwifes witnessing the event; the sunrise at the horizon suggests that the event took place at night, but the painting is not yet conceived as a nocturnal scene⁶.

Rogier van der Weyden’s Nativity on a triptych was presumably made for the Burgundian courtier Pieter Bladelin (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie) and proved to be even more influential. Rogier certainly know Campin’s composition since both artists had worked together before Rogier settled in Brussels. Yet, Rogier transformed the composition and reduced the number of figures in the central Nativity scene: the kneeling Virgin is accompanied by Joseph and two angels who kneel in front of the Infant as does the devout donor himself. Here too, the divine light is symbolized by rays of light surrounding the naked child, but the lighting is not yet an essential element of the composition⁷.

Transcending older pictorial traditions that define Campin’s composition, Rogier’s Nativity doesn’t any longer take place in a simple barn but is instead situated within the ruins of an ancient architecture that refers to the Palace of David⁸. The Romanesque style of the architecture has been a deliberately included to symbolize the dilapidated state of the Old Covenant of the Jewish Law to the New Covenant established with the birth of Christ. This intentional architectural archaism slowly became a commonplace in Flemish Painting but wasn’t limited to Rogier’s scenes of the Nativity⁹.

Although Rogier and his contemporaries regularly surrounded the newborn Child with rays of light, it was not before the last third of the fifteenth century that the Nativity was conceived as a night scene. Until then, in panel painting as well as in miniatures, a nocturnal setting was often implied but never explicitly expressed. Only by around 1470 artists begun to understand how the nightly atmosphere allowed for more dramatic light effects and thereby offered a unique way to immerse the biblical event with an aura that enhanced the mystical experience of contemporary viewers and invited them to partake in the rejoice.

Among the first artists who conceived Nativity in a nightly environment was Hugo van der Goes, a deeply devout painter and follower of the religious reform movement of the Devotio Moderna¹⁰. After his training in Brussels or Louvain, Van der Goes moved to Ghent in 1467 and quickly became one of the most influential artists in the Low Countries. At the height of his career, in the second half of the 1470s, the painter left Ghent and joined the reformed Augustinian Priory Rode Klooster near Brussels as a lay brother, where he died in 1482¹¹. His Nativity, now lost, was painted in the first years after arriving in Ghent and proved to be remarkably influential. More than twenty copies replicate Hugo’s composition in parts or as a whole and demonstrate its lasting popularity¹².

Geertgen tot Sint Jans reversed Hugo’s composition in Haarlem around 1480. In this painting (London, The National Gallery), he maintained the dramatic use of light and introduced a close-up view to enhance the vivid narrative. Angels with their faces bathed in light adore the Christ-child and while Mary lovingly bends over the baby, her hands in prayer, Joseph appears on the right edge in the shadows. In the background, Geertgen included the Annunciation to the Shepherds¹³.

A mid-size Nativity of about 1490 in Vienna by Gerard David (fig. 1) copies Hugo’s prototype more faithfully: set in the ruins of a Romanesque building, the Infant lies in a stone manger, curiously watched by the ass and the ox as well as two shepherds who witness the scene through a window. Joseph stands at the left with a candle in his hands. Next to him kneels Mary before the manger and places her hands protectively above the Child. From the right, angels arrive inn groups at the scene and adore the Infant while two angels sing from above. A powerful light emanates from the infant’s body, casting strong shadows against the ruin’s wall and immersing the figures with light and shade¹⁴.

Almost identical but almost twice the size than the previous painting is a second Nativity in Vienna (fig. 2), that has been attributed to Michel Sittow by Friedrich Winkler. About forty years after Hugo’s prototype, the painter has increased the contrast between light and dark considerable in his painting. The Virgin and angels cast strong shadows on the walls. Shepherds and their sheep can be seen around a fire in the far distant through a window in the rear, and a few of them appear on the right edge of the painting to approach the manger. The grotesque ornaments that decorate the pillars suggest that the painting was not made before the second decade of the 16^th century¹⁵.

The 15^th century prototype by Van der Goes was slightly altered by the painter and illuminator Gerard Horenbout whose Nativity was among one of his miniatures that were added around 1517 to the so-called Sforza-Hours¹⁶. The stunning light effects of this miniature were even surpassed in a much more elaborate version of the Nativity that Horenbout had included in the famous Grimani Breviary shortly before. The ruins of a Renaissance Temple have been transformed into a symmetrically constructed nave of an ancient Basilica where shepherds and countless angels arrive to join the Virgin in adoring the Christ child. The Nativity fills the entire page opposite a depiction of the Tiburtine Sybil presenting her Vision of Christ to the Emperor Augustus or Ara Coeli, framed by an Adoration of the Shepherds in its monochrome border¹⁷. Horenbout, who worked in Gent, must have been familiar with Van der Goes’ lost original and must have been keenly aware of derivates that circulated among miniature painters like Sanders Bening, who was married to a niece of Van der Goes¹⁸.

A symmetrical arrangement is also a feature of several Nativities that were produced in the early 16^th century in the workshops of the Master of Frankfurt (Hendrik van Wuleuwe) in Antwerp and which, as already Max J. Friedländer has noted, were made by close followers of Jan Joest van Kalkar¹⁹. This composition differs from the versions attributed to David and Sittow in that the entire arrangement of the figures is conceived symmetrically: angels surround the manger rather than approaching from one side. Remarkably enough, the various versions attributed to the workshop of the Master of Frankfurt (fig. 3) are not explicitly painted as nocturnal scenes and the artist hardly uses light to showcase the dramatic event.

This, in contrast, is exactly the case in the version that Friedländer first attributed to Jan Joest van Kalkar and that is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (fig. 4)²⁰. It shows the angels surrounding the manger, while small, colorful putti circulate at the top of the composition. Now considered the work of a follower²¹, the physiognomies of the angels and the Virgin show significant stylistic similarities of Jan Joest’s documented paintings for the High-Altarpiece in the Church of Saint Nicolai in Kalkar, made between 1505/6 and 1508/9 with the assistance of his workshop. In addition to the master, the workshop included Joos van Cleve and Joest’s future son-in law Barthel Bruyn the Elder, who was to make a career in Cologne. In 1516, Bruyn based his own depiction of the Nativity on Jan Joest’s composition when he painted the theme for Peter von Clapis and his wife Bela Bonenberg, whose portraits the artist added to both sides of the manger while turning the standing format of his model into a horizontal composition (fig. 5)²².

Jan Joest’s earliest Nativity, painted around 1505/6-08/9, is part of the Altarpiece in the Church of Sain Nicolai Kalkar, where it is shown on the exterior of the top-segment of the shrine²³. In some of totally twenty scenes of this altarpiece – most notably in his depiction of the Taking of Christ – Jan Joest demonstrates his ability to use light as an important element of design early on in his career. The Nativity itself is also conceived as a nightly scene and consists only of a limited number of figures: in addition to Mary and Joseph, only two angels participate in silent adoration of Christ. Jan Joest’s composition is a simplified version of Van der Goes’ original; its simplicity also informs the structure of the architecture: the damaged stable consists of a wall of bricks and a few elements that evoke the idea of a former Romanesque Church. Two smaller scenes in the background may reflect the demands of the confraternity of Our Ladies, who commissioned the altarpiece. On the left, the Virgin appears to Saint John writing the Gospel, while the Arca Coeli – Emperor Augustine’s Vision of Christ – is shown²⁴.

The increasing complexity of the composition in Jan Joest’s lost Nativity that was the source of the painting in New York and for Barth Bruyn’s panel in Frankfurt, must have followed at a later moment, after the painter had moved to Haarlem in 1509. The present painting is the most ambitious of the surviving compositions of the group, in terms of the use of light, in terms of the complexity of architecture and the dynamic of the various figures shown. The decorative patterns of the ancient architecture suggest a knowledge of Northern Italian Renaissance ornaments and the system of Grotesque that became fashionable after the rediscovery of the Domus Aurea in Rome. Such ornaments started to appear from circa 1515 onward in paintings produced in Brussels, Bruges and Antwerp and help us date the painting between 1515 and 1519, when the painter died²⁵.

This composition had less impact than his earlier version of the subject. However, the painting seems to have inspired an Adoration of the Shepherds, now in the Fine Art Museum of San Francisco, that has been painted in Antwerp in the third decade of the fifteenth century²⁶. It situates the Nativity in an ancient ruin with a monumental barrel vault; following Joest’s model, the anonymous painter is interested in the dramatic illumination of the scene and in particular in the effects of hovering figures and of bodies that block the light, but his painterly skills are limited.

Jan Joest’s Nativity testifies to the lasting impact of the Hugo van der Goes’ innovative idea to conceive the birth of Christ as a nocturnal scene. At least in three different panels Jan Joest painted in different stages of his career, he returned to the subject and created increasingly complex compositions of the traditional iconography. The last of these paintings, shown here, is arguably among the most charming versions of the subject in Early Netherlandish Art and demonstrates the painter’s skills and remarkable vision. It helps explains why Joachim von Sandrart’s Teutsche Academie  mentions such a nightly Nativity – erroneously attributed to Jan Stephan of Calcar († 1546) but most likely the work of Jan Joest – in the collection of Peter Paul Rubens²⁷.

Jan Joest van Kalkar’s Nativity of Christ is situated it within the broader context of Northern Renaissance painting and the evolution of Nativity iconography. Painted circa 1515-1519, the work reflects both Joest’s adherence to established artistic traditions and his engagement with innovations emerging from Antwerp. The panel’s dramatic use of light, architectural complexity, and ornate Renaissance ornamentation distinguish it as a nocturnal scene influenced by Hugo van der Goes and subsequent Netherlandish artists. The composition integrates biblical and apocryphal narratives, medieval embellishments, and visionary texts such as those of Bridget of Sweden. Through comparisons with works by Rogier van der Weyden, Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Gerard David and others, this entry traces the development of Nativity imagery and highlights Joest’s enduring impact of his Nativity within Early Netherlandish art.