Artist: Veit Stoss
Date: 1525
Technique: Wood
In the Late Middle Ages, naked and freestanding figures of the Christ Child were extremely popular, especially in nunneries. At first glance these somewhat stocky little boys, who have their fair share of baby fat, are affecting, even cheerful. Frequently the Christ Child was shown holding an orb and raising a hand in blessing, or with some symbolic object suggestive of the Eucharist – in the case of the Berlin Jesus, however, these attributes have been lost. Sculptures of this kind were meant to underline the humanity of Christ, and thus the mystery of God incarnate. The freestanding posture, which is hardly appropriate for an infant of such an age, thereby is bound to the core message: a statue of an infant too small to stand causes confusion in the beholder, which serves to articulate once more the miracle of Christ’s incarnation in human form. The miniature format of the Berlin infant suggests that the work originally served as an individual’s object of private devotion.
Artist |
|
|---|---|
Download |
|
Permissions |
Free for non commercial use. See below. |
 |
This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. However - you may not use this image for commercial purposes and you may not alter the image or remove the watermark. This applies to the United States, Canada, the European Union and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years.
|
Note that a few countries have copyright terms longer than 70 years: Mexico has 100 years, Colombia has 80 years, and Guatemala and Samoa have 75 years. This image may
not be in the public domain in these countries, which moreover do not implement the
