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Looking at a Masterpiece: The Adoration of the Shepherds

  • MADELEINE F. STEBBINS

Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494), one of the great Renaissance artists, painted this masterpiece (1485) for the Sassetti Chapel in the basilica of Santa Trinita in Florence.


Ghirlandaioclick image to enlarge

Later the young Michelangelo became his apprentice.

Ghirlandaio's painting was probably inspired by the Flemish artist Hugo van der Goes' Portinari altarpiece in its attention to detail and its "realist handling" of the three shepherds on the right, the one with brown hair being the artist's self-portrait.

This masterpiece is superbly rich in detail and symbolism.  However, rather than unravel its marvelous complexity I will try to discern its overall spirit, what its beauty tells us of another world.

It is all about the Mystery of the Incarnation — God becoming man — which, because it is so great, mind-boggling and above our reason, is the main enormous stumbling block for practically all non- Christians.  It is as if the artist here says (and succeeds): Let us try in our human way to give an inkling of the sweetest, the loveliest, the most tender, and — yes — the most amorous thing that ever has happened or ever will happen — the apogee of beauty and joy.  This beauty is a witness to truth.

Donald DeMarco wrote: "The Incarnation — Christ becoming man — attests to the merging of heaven and earth. . . . The Russian existentialist Nikolai Berdyaev maintains 'In the creative artistic attitude towards the world we catch a glimpse of another world.'"

She spreads her grace, also symbolized in the expanse of her mantle, to all around her.  Her very beauty is the opening to the sacred.

In this painting, though the divine Infant is in the center and Mary is to His left, she looms large as the centerpiece of that beauty, earthly and unearthly.  She spreads her grace, also symbolized in the expanse of her mantle, to all around her.  Her very beauty is the opening to the sacred.  She is indeed the gate of heaven.  From her flesh the Word became flesh.  His DNA comes exclusively from her.  She is the threshold.  It is noteworthy that she does but one thing: she adores the Word, the Son of God, drawing the shepherds and us into her adoration and her total focus on Him, the helpless Infant, whose power will conquer and save the world.

The ointments are of the Holy Spirit.  The delicacy of Mary's veil, her chaste eyes cast down, the gentle and tender bent of her head, the reverence of her hands in prayer, the humbly kneeling, loving posture of her whole body over her Child, all convey an inner world of moral goodness, purity, and holiness — an invincible goodness which ultimately overcomes all evil.

The throng on the left in a riot of colors is following the Magi, running eagerly and joyfully.  St. Joseph looks up to the angel and the star.  The beasts are painted like the touching creatures of God that they are.  They are somehow in adoration.  In the background is the holy city, Jerusalem.  All of nature, sheep, horses, meadows, distant hills, trees, flowers, are in a festive mood.  On earth all that waits for the Messiah has reached the fulfillment of its hope.  Everything sings.

This is Meaghen Gonzalez, Editor of CERC. I hope you appreciated this piece. We curate these articles especially for believers like you.

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Acknowledgement

laywitness Madeleine Stebbins. "Looking at a Masterpiece: The Adoration of the Shepherds." Lay Witness (November/December 2013).

Reprinted with permission of Lay Witness magazine.

Lay Witness is a publication of Catholic United for the Faith, Inc., an international lay apostolate founded in 1968 to support, defend, and advance the efforts of the teaching Church.

The Author

Madeleine Stebbins, widow of CUF founder H. Lyman Stebbins, is the chairman of CUFs board of directors.

Copyright © 2013 Lay Witness