Adoration of the Shepherds 1509

Cima da Conegliano painted this Adoration of the Shepherds, a large altarpiece, sometime around the turn of the 16th century. The Italian Renaissance was a time of immense social change, where artistic and intellectual elites sought to revive classical antiquity through humanist philosophy. Here, a humble scene unfolds, where shepherds and angels alike come to bear witness to the newborn Christ child. What’s interesting to me is how Cima, while working within the dominant religious conventions of his time, subtly interrogates class dynamics. Typically, in scenes of the Nativity, the shepherds are depicted as a singular, homogenous group. Here, though, they are rendered as distinct individuals, each marked by their own unique emotional response to the scene. The presence of the Holy Family, surrounded by both the natural world and human witnesses, invokes a sense of shared humanity, across all social strata. By individualizing the shepherds, Cima elevates their status, inviting viewers to consider their own place within the painting’s narrative and perhaps to imagine a more egalitarian social order.