Nativity

Light pours from the newborn Christ himself, lighting the Virgin's tender face and the shepherds who crowd in from the dark, one flinging up a hand against the glare, while angels tumble in the night sky above. Correggio makes the Child the sole source of radiance - one of the great early night scenes, and a direct ancestor of the dramatic darkness and light the Baroque would seize on. The soft, melting modeling is his alone. The collection traces this miracle of painted light from Gentile da Fabriano onward; Correggio's is the most overtly supernatural of them all.