As long as I’ve been working with watercolor I have wanted to do a nativity painting. As I’ve mentioned previously, “light” tends to be a theme in my painting (sometimes obviously, sometimes less so), and although it took me a long time to decide on the specifics of my painting, I knew for a long time that I wanted baby Jesus to shine.
While I enjoy all sorts of religious art, it is important to me personally to be very real. I wanted Jesus to look truly like a newborn. I wanted Mary and Joseph to behave as proud, mesmerized new parents really would.
Somewhere along the way, this story which I had heard before, stuck in my mind along with the thought that Joseph and Mary were the first humans to experience adoration. I knew I had the title for my piece:
“Listen well to this, my children. When I first came to Ars, there was a man who never passed the church without going in. In the morning on his way to work, and in the evening on his way home, he left his spade and pick-axe in the porch, and he spent a long time in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. Oh! how I loved to see that! I asked him once what he said to Our Lord during the long visits he made Him. Do you know what he told me? ‘Eh, Monsieur le Curé I say nothing to Him, I look at Him and He looks at me!’ How beautiful, my children, how beautiful!”
-Saint John Vianney
Details
Size: 9″ x 12″
Medium: Watercolor on Paper
Completed: December 2024