The Nativity 1499

Curator: It looks like something from a dream…all intricate lines and surprising little details popping out everywhere. Almost has a stage-set quality, wouldn't you agree? Editor: We're standing before Mair von Landshut’s “The Nativity,” created in 1499. Executed as a drawing, it also exists as a print. It currently resides here at The Met. Curator: Von Landshut really jams so much into a single image; look at those figures framing the scene…little onlookers frozen in time. And is that really an ox peering from behind the latticework above Mary? There’s something playfully absurd here. Editor: Indeed. What strikes me first is the perspectival complexity. He’s employing a kind of fractured perspective, especially when we consider how the architecture is rendered; a building block-like edifice placed beyond the Virgin and child, simultaneously present and remote. Curator: See, to me, that perspective heightens the symbolic nature. It’s not about capturing reality but about layering meaning, placing Mary at the very centre of his world. Note also how delicate are the lines, giving it all an ethereal kind of fragility. Editor: And it does encourage careful inspection. Look at the Virgin Mary, her gently bowed head suggesting a profound tenderness. But, paradoxically, the medium–ink on toned paper–imparts a surprising starkness. It denies us the richness and warmth usually associated with nativity scenes, challenging our sentimentality. Curator: Exactly! It invites us to really ponder on all this means; the quiet revolution symbolized by that small baby. Editor: We must also observe that he gives careful attention to texture, differentiating surfaces. Curator: Von Landshut has gifted us not just a scene, but an invitation to contemplation. Something quietly revolutionary there! Editor: Precisely! His treatment is very interesting indeed!