The Arrival In Bethlehem Analysis

The Arrival in Bethlehem was painted oil on wood in 1540 by an unknown artist or noted to be Master LC from the Netherlands (LC, Master). This painting is an excellent example of paintings that were left unfinished allowing the under drawing on the wood to be visible. The artist used oil as his or her painting medium and wood as his or hers canvas. According to The New York Times , “This image was apparently being worked on from front to back…” (Smith). This piece captures Mary and Joseph’s the arrival in Bethlehem, seeking a place to house and prepare for the delivery of the newborn Christ. In the mid ground of the painting, “…they appear again, kneeling in a courtyard in adoration of the newborn Christ”("The Arrival in Bethlehem."). The …show more content…
This style introduced new subjects such as landscape and genre painting. “Some Antwerp artist of the sixteenth century specialized in these themes as subjects in themselves, perhaps in response to the loss of religious patronage, or maybe as a way to gain market share” (Janson 653). Netherlands painter styles became trendy in England that noble and royal families began to ask for their portraits to be painted by them only. Joachim Patinir was one of the first to develop interest in landscaping paintings. These were no ordinary landscape scenes. Patinir used a high viewpoint to give an illusion to distance between the figures, foreground, and main focus in the piece. His style is similar to the artist that painted Arrival in Bethlehem because the human figures are scaled much smaller than the landscape around them. The artist that painted Arrival in Bethlehem seemed to focus on capturing the dreamy landscape of the city in Bethlehem rather than focus on the religious aspect of it. This can be the reason why Mary and Joseph are painted miniature compared to the entire piece. Christ Entering Jerusalem , by Giotto is an example of a different approach and technique to depict a religious figure entering holy land. Christ is painted in the foreground surround by apostles and citizens painted in the technique called fresco. Another comparison of the two pieces are the way the viewer sees the figures. Giotto places his main subjects in the foreground, which brings attention forward compared to the Arrival in Bethlehem, where all the figures are scaled down so the landscape is the main focus. Another example of different exemplification of Christ Entering Jerusalem is Duccio’s tempera on panel. Duccio painted Christ and the apostles to the left and scaled the citizens up and around the bend of the road to the right of the painting. “Duccio includes not only detailed architectural elements, some of