Jan Gossaert called Mabuse: The Adoration of the Kings (ca. 1510); National Gallery, London



RISING FROM THE RUINS
Today, Epiphany is celebrated, the feast day commemorating the visit of the Magi to Bethlehem. This holiday has been very popular since the first stages of Christianity. The religious can identify themselves with the Magi, admiring and honoring the newborn child Jesus. In art, the depiction of the nativity scene in sculpture or painting provides the believer with the suggestion of a direct, almost physical contact with the son of God.
It was therefore all the more regrettable that the description of this episode in the Bible is rather sparse. Gradually, the need arose to expand the biblical history of the Epiphany with more story lines and details. The added story elements were partly derived from the Apocryphal Gospels (Christian texts which aren’t part of the accepted canon of Scripture), others were derived from prophecies and events from the Old Testament which were assumed to be a pre-figuration of those in the New Testament. The ox and the donkey entered the birth house and the Magi (wise men) developed into kings, with a specific appearance and carrying certain gifts.
Especially in the later Middle Ages, books elaborating on the birth and life of Jesus, like The Golden Legend of the thirteenth-century writer Jacobus de Voragine, were outright bestsellers. Although the Church was initially skeptical about these expansions of the biblical story, she also saw the positive influence on the piety of the faithful. For artists, the stories were a desirable source of inspiration.
This beautiful Epiphany from ca. 1510 by Jan Gossaert is typical of the late medieval perception of the story. For example, the ruinous setting is derived from medieval sourcebooks. They describe how Mary gave birth on the remnants of the dilapidated palace of King David, Jesus’ ancestor. It is an interpretation of a prophecy by Amos in the Old Testament: ‘In that day I will restore the fallen house of David. I will repair its damaged walls. From the ruins I will rebuild it and restore its former glory.’ The metaphor is clear: the Old Order is destroyed, and now a new era can begin.
(text: Maarten Levendig)

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