Christianity
One story, many traditions.

Christianity took shape within the Jewish world of the first century. The Gospels preserve accounts of Jesus’s life that would become an enormous source of subjects for painters centuries later. This Nativity belongs to that religious memory: its fifteenth-century Catalan painter was not depicting an event he had witnessed.

Look closely. Look at the gestures and the position of the child. These are compositional decisions that make a narrative visible, not an archaeological reconstruction of Bethlehem.

The cross and Resurrection occupy a central place in Christian imagery. Two paintings distinguish the moments: Christ on the cross in El Greco’s work, followed by Johann König’s image of the risen Christ. Both paintings were made in the seventeenth century, not during Jesus’s lifetime.

Look closely. Move from the elongated body to the movement of the second composition. A difference in narrative becomes a difference in pictorial movement.

Paul belongs to the history of the earliest Christians and to New Testament literature. The conversion attributed to him in Christian tradition also became a subject for painters. Caravaggio gives this memory a dramatic form: the painting belongs to early modern art, not to a visual archive of the first century.

Look closely. The composition invites us to consider what the figure can see, what he cannot see and what the painter makes visible to the viewer.

In Byzantium, the religious use of images became a subject of conflict. The council of Nicaea in 787 defended their veneration; their restoration in 843 became a major landmark. The Cretan icon shown here was painted much later. It introduces a visual tradition that survived these debates, without pretending to be an object from the controversy itself.

Look closely. Mother and child touch cheeks. The gold ground and tender gesture offer a different way of looking from the illusion of a window onto the world.

Berlinghiero’s Madonna and Child follows a Byzantine formula: Mary points to her son. This visual language travelled between painting traditions around the Mediterranean. Comparing this Italian work with the Cretan icon reveals a visual relationship without erasing their different contexts and uses.

Look closely. The pointing finger matters as much as the gaze. An image can teach through a gesture.

Veronese and his workshop bring the angel and Mary close together in this Annunciation. The subject is ancient, but its staging belongs to late sixteenth-century Venetian painting. The work draws its strength from that dialogue: an inherited narrative, with bodies, fabrics and light newly imagined.

Look closely. Follow the movement between the figures, then the dove above them. The museum also identifies the lily as a symbol of purity associated with Mary.

The sixteenth-century Reformations changed the role of images. Portraits of Luther helped to spread the Reformation, although Protestant traditions did not all adopt the same attitude towards art. In Catholic settings, the response to the Reformations reaffirmed the value of religious images. Luther’s portrait and the Last Supper offer two starting points for this period of change.

Look closely. A reformer’s portrait serves a different purpose from a scene that brings a biblical narrative before the viewer. Looking at their uses helps us understand their differences.

Saints and Marian subjects continued to inspire different forms. Sassetta painted Saint Francis before the cross; Murillo gave the Immaculate Conception an expansive, luminous composition. Later, Gauguin placed Christ in a Breton landscape, using an almost unreal yellow. The religious narrative remains recognisable, while its pictorial language changes.

Look closely. Compare gold, light and colour. These works illuminate artistic transformations; they do not replace a complete history of modern Churches.