Human Creativity - God’s Good Creation

December 31, 2022December 30, 2022

The Adoration of the Shepherds

A burst of brilliant light shines on the newborn Christ, who is watched over by Mary, Joseph and a gathering of worshippers and onlookers. The source of the light is hidden, so it seems to radiate directly from the sleeping child, illuminating the faces of all around him.

The scene represents the episode in the Bible when shepherds arrived to pay homage to the Messiah. One kneels, raising his hands in wonder. Another is silhouetted against the light, while a third stands reverently to one side. Along with the animals in the background, this was the traditional cast of an Adoration of the Shepherds. But the artist added other figures, including the two women holding up a small child, to give the scene a more informal atmosphere.

A closely related version of the Adoration known to be by Rembrandt is in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. Analysis suggests that it is likely that the London picture is a study inspired by the Munich one, made by a highly competent apprentice.

Courtesy of The National Gallery of Art, London

Luke 2:15-20

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

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Human Creativity

December 28, 2022December 27, 2022

Simeon’s Song of Praise

Joseph and Mary are in the temple to dedicate their newborn baby Jesus to God, where the child is recognised by Simeon as the long-awaited Messiah. The old man takes him in his arms and bursts into a song of praise. The divine light that floods Simeon appears to be shining from the child himself.

When Rembrandt painted this scene, he was twenty-five and still living in Leiden. He moved to Amsterdam in the same year, where he started to paint much larger works and made portraits for the first time.

Courtesy of Mauritshuis – The Hague.

Luke 2:22-38

Jesus Is Presented in the Temple

²²When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ²³(as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), ²⁴and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”

²⁵Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. ²⁶It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. ²⁷Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, ²⁸Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,

²⁹ “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word;

³⁰ for my eyes have seen your salvation,

³¹ which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,

³² a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

³³And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. ³⁴Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed ³⁵so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

³⁶There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, ³⁷then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. ³⁸At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Lk 2:22–38.

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December 4, 2022July 14, 2023

The Last of the Buffalo

(Click on image for full view)

Overview

The Last of the Buffalo is Albert Bierstadt’s final, great, western painting. Measuring six by ten feet, it mirrors in size his first massive oil, Lake Lucerne (1858), also in the National Gallery of Art collection. The ambitious landscape combines a variety of elements he had sketched during multiple western excursions. Because of its composite nature, the view incorporates many topographical features representative of the Great Plains: the dead and injured buffalo in the foreground occupy a dry, golden meadow; their counterparts cross a wide river in the middle ground; and others graze as far as the eye can see as the landscape turns to prairies, hills, mesas, and snowcapped peaks. Likewise, the fertile landscape nurtures a profusion of plains wildlife, including elk, coyote, antelopepronghorn, fox, rabbits, and even a prairie dog at lower left.

Many of these animals turn to look at the focal group of a man on horseback locked in combat with a charging buffalo. In contrast with his careful record of flora and fauna, the artist’s rendering of this confrontation and its backdrop of seemingly limitless herds is a romantic invention rather than an accurate depiction of life on the frontier. By the time Bierstadt painted this canvas, the buffalo was on the verge of extinction. The animals had been reduced in population to only about 1,000 from 30 million at the beginning of the century. Scattering buffalo skulls and other bones around the deadly battle, Bierstadt created what one scholar described as “a masterfully conceived fiction that addressed contemporary issues” one that references, even laments, the destruction wrought by encroaching settlement. However, at about this time, efforts to preserve the buffalo began to garner support. In 1886, when Smithsonian Institution taxidermist William T. Hornaday traveled west, he was so distraught by the decimation of the buffalo that he became a preservationist. He returned to Washington with specimens for the Smithsonian and also with live buffalo for the National Zoo, which he helped establish in 1889 one year after Bierstadt completed this painting.

National Gallery of Art

**Looking For Buffalo**
Grand Tetons, Wyoming
blueridgemountain_man

Actually, Buffalo reside in Yellowstone NP. Next door to the Tetons. My binoculars are not that good.

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