Adoration of the Child

The Dutchman who painted this had gone to Rome to study Caravaggio's darkness, and Italians ended up calling him Gherardo delle Notti, Gerard of the nights, for scenes lit by a single flame. Here there is no flame at all. Mary lays the newborn in swaddling clothes while Joseph leans over her shoulder and two angels bend across the crib, and every face is lit from below by the baby himself. The Child is the source of the light. Honthorst pushed Caravaggio's contrasts even further toward total darkness, a manner later called tenebrism, so the picture is mostly shadow with a core of glow. He made several of these nocturnal nativities in the years around 1620, and this one stayed in Florence.