Natività notturna

Around 1490, in Haarlem in the Low Countries, Geertgen tot Sint Jans painted the nativity as almost total darkness, and every scrap of light in it has a source you can name. The whole stable is lit by the newborn child himself, glowing in the manger so that Mary and the angels around him are picked out of the black. This wasn't the painter inventing a mood. It follows a specific text, the vision of the birth written down by the 14th-century mystic Bridget of Sweden, who described a light pouring from the child so strong that Joseph's candle gave off nothing beside it. Look past the manger and you find the other lights, a small fire on the hillside where the shepherds sit, and the shining angel who has come to tell them. Painting a scene by its internal light like this was still a rare and difficult thing to attempt. The panel is small, and it hangs now in the National Gallery in London.