Jesus as a child

 

There are a large number of paintings of Jesus’ nativity, of his crucifixion and resurrection, and of various other events in his adult life. Many fewer paintings have been made of his childhood as we have little information on his life up to the age of twelve. We know that he lived with Mary and Joseph who, like almost all parents, were dedicated to looking after him. This is shown in the account in Luke’s Gospel [1]:

“And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him. Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, how is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.”

The meeting in the temple is shown in paintings by Steen (from 1660) and by Hoffmann (from 1884) shown below. At this time, Jesus is effectively embarking on adult life, although there are a few more years to go before he actively pursued his Ministry. In Steen’s painting, Jesus is portrayed as an innocent child, with divine light shining upon him, whereas Hoffmann captures a more confident moment,

We are left with a number of questions about Jesus’ boyhood – did he grow up as other children do, or did he know everything because he was the Son of God (as implied in Luke’s gospel)? Clearly, the incident in the Temple shows that Jesus had a superior knowledge, but how did he acquire it? Alternatively, if he knew everything all along, what did he spend his childhood years doing? Before addressing this question, let’s look at two more paintings; one by Murillo (from ca. 1681), who made many images of children, and one by Millais (from 1850). The painting by Murillo (below) is clearly for veneration and worship, with Jesus standing on a block to show that he was not bound to Earth, and emphasising the link between his Earthly parents and also to God and the Holy Spirit (as represented by a dove; a conventional device used by artists to portray something that cannot be seen). I’ve written before about this painting [2] and it has always impressed me, showing, as it does, many tender emotions and, in Joseph, a sense of apprehension.

Millais, in contrast, takes an everyday approach (above), with Jesus and Mary in Joseph’s carpentry shop. There is little sign here that Jesus is the son of God, or that Mary was chosen to have the special, and unique, role of becoming his mother, even though she was a virgin at the time of divine conception. We know that much from the accounts in The Bible, but we would not guess that was part of the story from the domestic scene shown by Millais. As might be expected, the painting caused controversy when exhibited, and among the critics was Charles Dickens who wrote an article in Household Words [3] that attacked the Pre-Raphaelites in general and, especially, the painting by Millais. These extracts come from that piece:

“You behold the interior of a carpenter’s shop. In the foreground of that carpenter’s shop is a hideous, wry-necked, blubbering, red-headed boy, in a bed-gown; who appears to have received a poke in the hand, from the stick of another boy with whom he has been playing in an adjacent gutter, and to be holding it up for the contemplation of a kneeling woman, so horrible in her ugliness, that (supposing it were possible for any human creature to exist for a moment with that dislocated throat) she would stand out from the rest of the company as a Monster, in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest gin-shop in England. Two almost naked carpenters, master and journeyman, worthy companions of this agreeable female, are working at their trade; a boy with some small flavo[u]r of humanity in him, is entering with a vessel of water; and nobody is paying attention to a snuffy old woman who seems to have mistaken that shop for the tobacconist’s next door, and to be hopelessly waiting at the counter to be served with half an ounce of her favourite mixture. Wherever it is possible to express ugliness of feature, limb, or attitude, you have it expressed.”

From which we conclude that Dickens did not like the picture one bit, or it’s representation of the Holy Family. Of all the paintings in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood exhibition, it was this work by Millais that created much criticism and the press “reacted ferociously to what they viewed as a repulsive, near blasphemous representation of the Holy Family” [4]. But why? Surely, the view that Jesus had a normal childhood can be accepted, and the scene in Millais’ painting is just one of everyday life, although we note that the wound in Jesus’ hand reminds us of the stigma of a nail, anchoring the image into the story of what is to come (see detail below). We also see a splash of blood by the nail in the door that is on the work bench and a splash on Jesus’ foot just to emphasise the point, and Joseph is holding Jesus’ hand open so that we can get a better look. The atmosphere is completely different to that in the painting by Murillo.

So, we are left with the two main questions: What was the childhood of Jesus really like; and was he all-knowing from the moment of birth? Of course, we don’t know the answer to either, but we do have some further information on the former.

As Mary was a virgin, we know that Jesus was her first-born child, but we also know that, by the time he was twelve, he had four brothers and at least two sisters [5]. We know, therefore, that he had the advantage of being the first-born, but we can only imagine what family life was like and whether Jesus played games and enjoyed the other activities of growing children. In the view of an atheist, Jesus’ upbringing was that of any child, although he was certainly unusual in having the talents that he later displayed as a great religious leader. To a Trinitarian, like the majority of Christians, Jesus was not only the Son of God but also part of God, together with the Holy Spirit. As such, we cannot know whether he learned much during childhood, or whether it was a matter of learning how to connect human development with being divine.

A third approach to the rôle of Jesus, Arianism, was advocated by Isaac Newton who, in addition to his extraordinary scientific achievements, studied early Christianity by consulting a large number of original sources. It is likely that he spent as much time on these researches as he did on scientific and mathematical investigations, but, because of likely hostility from many parts of the establishment, he kept his notes private. Richard Westfall [6] tells us that:

“The conviction began to possess him that a massive fraud, which began in the fourth and fifth centuries, had perverted the legacy of the early church. Central to the fraud were the Scriptures, which Newton began to believe had been corrupted to support trinitarianism. It is impossible to say exactly when the conviction fastened upon him. The original notes themselves testify to early doubts. Far from silencing the doubts, he let them possess him..

..The earlier corruption of doctrine, which called for the corruption of Scripture to support it, occurred in the fourth century, when the triumph of Athanasius over Arius imposed the false doctrine of the trinity on Christianity..

.. The mere thought of trinitarianism, ‘the fals infernal religion’, was enough to fan Newton into a rage.”

What would Newton have made of the paintings by Murillo and Millais if he saw them? To the eyes of an atheist or an Arianist, Jesus working in his father’s carpenter’s shop seems quite natural and the adoration shown in the painting by Murillo difficult to reconcile with any kind of normal childhood. Trinitarianism, and its sub-branch the worship of Mary, are embedded in the Catholic Church and have been since the early days of Christianity. Trinitarians worship Jesus through all his life, death and resurrection as he was/is part of God. They seem disinterested in questions regarding his childhood, while focussing on his life before, and after this time. This is also true of artists through the ages and reflects commissioned work from Christians.

Yet there is one point that is worth stressing and that is that Jesus, whether he had innate knowledge or not, was brought up in humble surroundings and his discourse in the Temple came as a surprise to the learned gathering. It’s a good way of showing that Jesus was at one with all strata of society. How Trinitarians tie that in with his divinity is not known (or important to them?). For atheists (and possibly Arianists), however, it presents Jesus as a great leader with a “grass roots” base of believers and thus of general appeal. The tragic events of his later life, essential to the idea of redemption, then led to the adoption of the Trinitarian view of Christian doctrine by the Catholic Church, an organisation that was certainly hierarchical and probably corrupt. It remains the basis for most Christian belief today.

[1] Luke 2: 40-52 in the Authorized King James version of The Holy Bible.

[2] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2018/04/murillos-heavenly-and-earthly-trinities.html

[3] Charles Dickens (1850) Old Lamps for New Ones. Household Words 1(12): 265-267.

[4] Christine Riding (2006) John Everett Millais. London, Tate Publishing.

[5] Matthew 13:55-56 and Mark 6:3 in the Authorized King James version of The Holy Bible.

[6] Richard Westfall (1993) The Life of Isaac Newton. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visits to the coffee shop

Twice a week, I enjoy having a flat white at my local coffee shop, choosing a time (about 11.00) when there are not too many people about and there is thus a choice of tables. My ritual is the same each time: order the coffee, collect it, settle at a table, and then read the paper that I have bought from the M&S shop that is next door to my habitual haunt. I take my time over the coffee (unless it gets busy and I need to give up my table, unlike the “home office” customers) and then walk back home. Nine times out of ten I feel better than when I arrived at the shop and I can’t really explain why. It’s not because of the stimulus of caffeine, although that may play a small part, but more about making me feel part of a bigger world; something about which psychiatrists would have their own comments to make. I also enjoy coffee with friends, but my solo visits have a quite different quality, suiting my mildly autistic nature.

Sometimes, a piece in the newspaper has a special appeal and that happened this morning when I read the review by Ellen Peirson-Hagger of Sheila Heti’s book Pure Colour in the "i" newspaper for 25th February 2022. It contained a paragraph that really made me think (both the review and the paragraph are shown below).

The question that was posed touched a nerve ending and I started to ask myself why I am moved deeply by some works of art – I guess that is something we all do, but I can only speak from my own experience.

When I’m in the right mood, I can be so moved by some pieces of music that I almost feel shaken. Something very deep within me is getting touched and I can easily see how this could be interpreted as “the breath of God”. What is this feeling? I don’t know the answer, but the effect is profound. Does it help to know that the composers that most affect me in this way are Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Sibelius? All three wrote music that was evocative of places that I know and where I have been “at one” with both Nature and Landscape. Of course, it is easy to say that my feelings are those of a Romantic and that it is all very emotional, but that doesn’t explain why I am that way. It feels like an attempt to find “light at the end of a tunnel”.

Other arts also affect me, but not to such a profound emotional level, although some paintings I return to stare at every time I visit galleries on repeat visits. It might be works by Turner or by Murillo, and there is no consistency of subject matter, just something that draws me. Turner I find fascinating, because he was seeking to portray something about the essence of Nature: Murillo because there is no artist better at conveying human tenderness. Like my reaction to certain pieces of music, the feelings can be (inadequately) described, but they cannot be shared.

It leaves me with the question of whether what I feel is similar to what others feel and whether that deep feeling causes them to believe in God. It’s interesting what can come from reading one’s paper in the local coffee shop.

 

Murillo’s Heavenly and Earthly Trinities

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was born in Seville in 1617, the last of fourteen children of a surgeon barber and his wife, who had been married for 30 years by the time he came along. Unfortunately, his parents died before he was 11 years old and he went to live with a sister, married coincidentally to a surgeon barber, but he did not follow tradition and became apprenticed to the painter Juan del Castillo, to whom his mother was related.

Murillo soon became recognised as a gifted artist and he specialised in genre paintings, showing the street life of Seville, and in religious works, both types being commissioned throughout his life and being much sought after by collectors in Spain and elsewhere in Europe. Apart from two short stays in Madrid, Murillo lived in Seville, visiting Cadiz to complete commissions towards the end of his life. It was in Cadiz that he received a severe abdominal injury after falling from a scaffold while painting and he died in Seville in 1682 as a result of this injury.

No consideration of Murillo and his work can be complete without knowing more about Seville at this time. Situated on the Guadalquivir River, some 100 km inland from the Gulf of Cadiz, Seville had been an easily defended commercial port from Roman times. After the Moors had been defeated by the Spanish, it became a major trading hub and, at the time of conquests by Spain in the Americas, grew very wealthy. As a demonstration of this wealth, the mosque was demolished in the 15th Century and replaced with a huge Gothic cathedral that was completed in the Sixteenth Century, the minaret of the mosque being used as a bell tower – the Giralda. Also retained from the Moorish period was much of the original Alcázar palace and its beautiful gardens, showing that not everything from this time was to be destroyed. However, the Roman Catholic Church showed no tolerance for Muslim beliefs, or those of other faiths, and the courts of the Inquisition were active. The Counter Reformation was also in full flow and the Spanish Baroque, with its strongly Roman Catholic symbolism, gives a flavour of the times in terms of religious power in Spain, the great wealth of Seville contributing to the importance of the Church in the city.

While there were great riches, there was also poverty and the Caridad Fraternity was founded to provide charity to the poor. This was an important organisation and it was needed, for, in addition to widespread poverty, there was also disease, including a devastating outbreak of plague in 1649 that resulted in tens of thousand of deaths. By the Seventeenth Century, Seville, still thriving as a trading centre, had lost its significance as a port, with Cadiz becoming much more important. The wealth of the city was also affected by taxes levied to pay for wars in which Spain was involved, including the 30 Years War.

It was against this background of a wealthy/poor city that was declining, and in which there was suffering, that we should view the works of Murillo. Add to that the tragedies of his own life and we can imagine a man who felt emotional pain. In the self-portrait that hangs in the National Gallery we can see this side of the man and, as the painting was requested by his surviving children, and retained by them, our impression is probably not based on imagination alone (see above). We know also that Murillo was active in the work of the Caridad Fraternity and, although he was wealthy and successful, we sense a man who felt for those less fortunate than himself. This is the secret of his genre painting, where street urchins, although clearly poor, are usually portrayed as being well-fed and cheerful - not true of all older people who feature in some pictures, like the wonderful An urchin mocking an old woman eating migas (see below). Although it is a generalisation, the impression gained from the genre paintings is one of resourceful survivors and they challenge us when they look out of canvasses. The rich owners of these works could convince themselves that the poor were able to thrive and the subjects will have reminded them of The Beatitudes and the difficulty of the rich entering Heaven that is expressed in The Holy Bible (Matthew 19:24). Much charity probably resulted, as well as generous gifts to the Church and the financing of Fiestas that all citizens of Seville could enjoy.

Among Murillo’s religious paintings, the finest is The Heavenly and Earthly Trinities painted near the end of his life (probably completed the year before he died) and also providing a link to his genre painting. This wonderful work (shown above) hangs in the National Gallery in London and I’d like us to look at it in detail. Let’s begin with its composition rather than its subject matter. In the picture below, I have plotted (crudely) the principal lines of composition and these can be listed:

1. The composition is framed by an oval and all our attention is drawn to the characters within that frame.

2. The vertical is not at the mid-point – 45% of the painting is to the left, 55% to the right

3. Two diagonals run across the painting, crossing the vertical at the near-central point of the picture.

4. Further “sub-diagonals” (shown as dotted lines on my sketch) link the central figure with the figure at lower left and the figure top left with that at lower right. 

Our eye is thus drawn through, and around, the subject and we can readily identify the characters. The central figure is Jesus, shown somewhat unusually as a child, and the principal lines of composition run through his face, that looks upward. The vertical connects Jesus to God through a dove representing the Holy Spirit, thus giving the “Heavenly Trinity”. A dove is used as it is impossible to visualise the Holy Spirit and doves are mentioned in The Holy Bible as appearing at significant events – as in the Baptism of Christ by John (Mathew 3:16). White doves are a colour variant of Rock Doves (Columba livia) that are the ancestors of urban pigeons and also homing pigeons. The homing ability of these birds has been known for thousands of years and, in a society where humans had never flown, a pigeon able to fly and travel to a known destination is a suitable symbol, especially if it is white as this is the colour of purity in Western culture.

Both the dove and Jesus have an aura of light behind them in Murillo’s painting and this emphasises that they are part of God. Trinitarianism was probably an early invention of the Christian Church and there were some who feel that Jesus, while the son of God, was not God on Earth. Perhaps the leading scholar of the early writings that led to Trinitarianism was Sir Isaac Newton, but his lengthy scholarship was not published and his notes were only discovered after his death. Newton was, after all, a Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge and public knowledge of his view that the worship of Jesus was idolatrous would have been disastrous, even though no one would have questioned his otherwise orthodox Christian belief. Having established Trinitarianism early in its development, it is no surprise that the Roman Catholic church retained this view, as did the Protestant Churches.

In the painting, Jesus is standing on what appears to be a mounting block and his hands are resting on those of Mary and Joseph – importantly, he is being steadied, but not being held. Showing Jesus on a pedestal has two functions: the first is compositional, as has already been described; and the second is that Jesus is not of the Earth. The Earthly Trinity thus has three members of very different status. The sub-diagonal running from the head of Mary to that of Jesus emphasises the close link between them, as does their physical closeness (provided by the shift to the left of the vertical "centre line" of the painting). We are reminded of the idea of intercession by the Virgin and anyone gazing at Murillo’s master work is aware of Mary’s status. We are getting close to Marian worship here.

Joseph looks out at us and we wonder what he is thinking. He carries the flowering rod that identified him as the future husband of Mary, an old story that was given significance by The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine from mediaeval times and now enshrined in Roman Catholic doctrine. We note that his costume is that of a carpenter and its colour reminds us of the colours of Murillo’s genre paintings, another link to his poor and very earthbound position. However, the sub-diagonal that runs across the picture from Joseph to God, across the void of space, ensures the importance of his role. Mary wears much more expensive robes in “her” colours of blue and scarlet and the brighter colours of the left “half” of the picture, remind us of Rubens (who probably inspired Murillo’s palette). The contrast in the colours of the two halves was balanced by Murillo by shifting the centre line to the left, in addition to drawing Mary closer to Jesus.

God is in Heaven and has his hand on a silver globe that emphasises his being the Creator and also comments on the geocentric nature of Roman Catholic belief at this time. Although Copernicus had demonstrated that a heliocentric view of the solar system was the best explanation of our observations, this view was considered blasphemous by the Church as it offended Christian orthodoxy. Indeed, it should be remembered that Galileo was found guilty of blasphemy for propounding heliocentric views in the early Seventeenth Century and died under house arrest in 1642.

The final figures in Murillo’s painting are the cherubs that are flying around on either side of God. To anyone interested in the history of Western Art, these figures will be recognised as putti that adorn some Italian Renaissance pictures and sculptures. Putti have older origins but, in Italian Art, they represent agents of Cupid, the Roman god of love, and the role of these boy babies with sparrow wings is to encourage a “bit of action”, sometimes by firing darts from the little bows that they may carry. The cherubs of the Spanish Baroque clearly have another function and possibly represent cherubim, described in the Bible as being part of the heavenly throng. Roman Catholic doctrine on heavenly beings was formed around the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, who identified classes of beings, with angels and archangels as the lowest two orders and seraphim and cherubim as being of the highest rank. Unlike Biblical descriptions of angels and archangels, where wings are not mentioned, we know that seraphim have six wings and cherubim two, but they are large enough to cover the mercy seat. There is thus a conflict between the cherubim of The Holy Bible and the cherubs of Spanish Baroque paintings and we do not know what they represent. In some paintings, including at least one by Murillo, we see heads with wings attached (there being no body) and these take away the need to disguise their sex. It might be proposed that these torso-less heads represent souls that have flown to Heaven, or to Purgatory, but that cannot be the explanation of the cherubs in Murillo’s painting as they would have to be Jewish souls and that would not go down well with the authorities. They must represent something important to those of faith, but what?

Such a question does not detract from the magnificence of the work and its grand scale. It is unquestionably a great painting and we are lucky to have it on public display, whether we agree with Roman Catholic doctrine, or not.

This essay is a shortened version of a talk that I gave in Room 30 at the National Gallery in London on 21st March 2018.

The following sources formed a vital part of my research for both the talk and the article, together with numerous internet sources:

Vicky Hayward (editor) (1982) Bartolomé Esteban Murillo 1617-1682. London, George Weidenfeld and Nicholson Limited.

 

Xavier F. Salomon and Letizia Treves (2017) Murillo: The self-portraits. New Haven, Yale University Press.

Richard Westfall (1993) The Life of Isaac Newton. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Dyrham Park, Murillo, and migas

Last week, I visited Dyrham Park for the first time. The late 17th and early 18th Century house has a breathtaking setting (see above) and its grounds, with their ponds and formal gardens, add to the perfection of it all. The interiors are equally splendid and I enjoyed walking around, looking at the furnishings and decoration, but I was drawn to a painting. This was Murillo's An Urchin Mocking an Old Woman eating Migas that had been in the house for centuries, although the canvas I was staring at was, I think, a copy [1] of the original (see below).

There are two threads to Murillo's work: religious paintings and those of street life, and the painting at Dyrham Park combines both. Prolific and popular in his time, Murillo had an excellent technique and was able to convey movement and feeling. I remember being struck by his work when I first saw The Heavenly and Earthly Trinities [2] on a visit to the National Gallery in London as a teenager.

I have indicated the main lines of composition in the Dyrham Park painting above, the background being of little significance. From this analysis, we see that our eye is led around the images, with the lines drawing us to the face of the woman and, over and over again, to the face of the boy. The dog also plays a part, as does the food that the woman is attempting to eat with a spoon. The boy has a beautiful face (we can barely see his body, but for the right shoulder and arm) and, while engaging us, he is mocking the old woman, who looks across and up with fear and resignation. Her bowl of migas is drawn to one side and partially hidden from him (and the dog) by her right arm. The message is one of the cockiness of youth and the despair of bullying in old age and being able to do nothing about it. While the religious component is hidden, the painting could be taken as a model for at least one of the Beatitudes [3] and may well have been conceived by Murillo with this in mind.

Another question arises from the title of the work: what is migas? By chance, I had lunch yesterday at Moro in Exmouth Market in London. On the menu (see below, with magnified section) they had migas as an accompaniment to grilled lamb and sweetcorn, so I had some. The migas that I was served was a ball of fried, seasoned breadcrumbs and this is the way the dish is served in modern Spain, and in many other countries, often with some small pieces of meat or chorizo included. It is thus "leftovers" and this further emphasises the lowly position of the old woman in the painting, although her migas looks much more substantial and was possibly of bread scraps moistened with liquid (water, milk, or oil?) from the jug seen in the bottom left of the composition.

If you get the chance, visit Dyrham Park [4]. It is a magnificent place and you, too, can stare at the Murillo painting and be challenged by Murillo's urchin.

[1] http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/453755

[2] https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/bartolome-esteban-murillo-the-heavenly-and-earthly-trinities

[3] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5%3A1-12&version=KJV

[4] https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/dyrham-park