The Nativity, with God the Father Surrounded by Angels and Cherubim

Francesco di Giorgio Martini

National Gallery of Art

A kneeling woman and a sitting man are on either side of a nude baby boy as a bearded man, God, and winged angels hover in the sky over a deep landscape. This vertical panel has a rounded top. The people all have pale skin with pink cheeks, white-blond or gray hair, and wear robes in shades of carnation pink, azure blue, and buttercup yellow. The woman is larger in scale than the man sitting opposite her, and she has notably pale, white-colored skin. In the right half of the painting, she kneels facing inward over the baby with her palm and fingertips together in front of her chest. She looks down and to our left, past the baby, with pale gray eyes under thin brows. She has a long, delicate nose, thin lips, and a pointed chin. Her ice-blond hair is pulled up around a white band, and curls fall down past her shoulders. Her blue cloak is lined with white. The baby lies facing her on one end of the cloak, propped up on blue and dark pink pillows. The baby has a round pate and tiny features. He crosses his ankles and holds one hand up with the first two fingers raised. The man sitting to the left is balding with gray hair and a curly beard. His wide-set eyes slope down at the outer corners, and he looks down and to the right with his lips parted. He is barefoot and holds a short staff in one hand. The woman, baby, and man have disk-like gold halos. A canteen hangs from the low branch of a tree, and a sack lies at its foot just beyond the man. The ruins of a red brick arch and a shorn tree trunk support a thatched roof near the left edge of the painting. The rocky ground gives way to grassy hills dotted with trees in the background. A river winds to the horizon, which comes over halfway up the composition. Two birds float on the water and two bridges span it. A conical hill rises along the right edge of the painting. Against a pale blue sky in the top third, God has a beard, a lined forehead, and hooded eyes. He floats supported and surrounded by fourteen youths with short, gold wings. Seemingly countless winged baby heads painted in tones of cobalt blue create a cloud of its own behind God and the youths. Four older angels hover below. Two, who wear pink, have their hands together in prayer and the other two, wearing blue or black, cross their arms.