The Nativity (Giotto)

The Gospel of Luke tells how Christ was born in a stable in Bethlehem and laid in a manger, with shepherds called from the fields by angels to be the first to see him (Luke 2:1-20). Giotto's Virgin reclines on the hillside and turns to lay her swaddled son in the manger, her gaze fixed on his face; the ox and ass lean in, Joseph dozes, and angels wheel overhead, one announcing the birth to a shepherd seen from behind. From the Arena Chapel in Padua, it trades the gold splendor of earlier altarpieces for a cold blue sky and a few solid forms, finding the holy in a mother's ordinary tenderness.