These circumstances we find in some of the early representations, more or less modified by the taste of the artist. I have seen, for instance, an old German print, in which the Virgin "in the posture and guise of worshippers," kneels before her Child as usual; while the background exhibits a hilly country, and Joseph with a lantern in his hand is helping a woman over a stile. Sometimes there are two women, and then the second is always Mary Salome, who, according to a passage in the same popular authority, visited the mother in her hour of travail.
The angelic choristers in the sky, or upon the roof of the stable, sing the Gloria in excelsis Deo; they are never, I believe, omitted, and in early pictures are always three in number; but in later pictures, the mystic three become a chorus of musicians Joseph is generally sitting by, leaning on his staff in profound meditation, or asleep as one overcome by fatigue; or with a taper or a lantern in his hand, to express the night-time.
Among the accessories, the ox and the ass are indispensable. The introduction of these animals rests on an antique tradition mentioned by St. Jerome, and also on two texts of prophecy: "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib" (Isaiah i. 3); and Habakkuk iii. 4, is rendered, in the Vulgate, "He shall lie down between the ox and the ass." From the sixth century, which is the supposed date of the earliest extant, to the sixteenth century, there was never any representation of the Nativity without these two animals; thus in the old carol so often quoted—
"Agnovit bos et asinus
Quod Puer erat Dominus!"
In some of the earliest pictures the animals kneel, "confessing the Lord." (Isaiah xliii. 20.) In some instances they stare into the manger with a most naïve expression of amazement at what they find there. One of the old Latin hymns, De Nativitate Domini, describes them, in that wintry night, as warming the new-born Infant with their breath; and they have always been interpreted as symbols, the ox as emblem of the Jews, the ass of the Gentiles.
I wonder if it has ever occurred to those who have studied the inner life and meaning of these old representations,—owed to them, perhaps, homilies of wisdom, as well as visions of poetry,—that the introduction of the ox and the ass, those symbols of animal servitude and inferiority, might be otherwise translated;—that their pathetic dumb recognition of the Saviour of the world might be interpreted as extending to them also a participation in his mission of love and mercy;—that since to the lower creatures it was not denied to be present at that great manifestation, they are thus brought nearer to the sympathies of our humanity, as we are, thereby, lifted to a nearer communion with the universal spirit of love;—but this is "considering too deeply," perhaps, for the occasion. Return we to our pictures. Certainly we are not in danger of being led into any profound or fanciful speculations by the ignorant painters of the later schools of art. In their "Nativities," the ox and ass are not, indeed, omitted; they must be present by religious and prescriptive usage; but they are to be made picturesque, as if they were in the stable by right, and as if it were only a stable, not a temple hallowed to a diviner significance. The ass, instead of looking devoutly into the cradle, stretches out his lazy length in the foreground; the ox winks his eyes with a more than bovine stupidity. In some of the old German pictures, while the Hebrew ox is quietly chewing the cud, the Gentile ass "lifts up his voice" and brays with open mouth, as if in triumph.
One version of this subject, by Agnolo Gaddi, is conceived with much simplicity and originality. The Virgin and Joseph are seen together within a rude and otherwise solitary building. She points expressively to the manger where lies the divine Infant, while Joseph leans on his staff and appears lost in thought.
Correggio has been much admired for representing in his famous Nativity the whole picture as lighted by the glory which proceeds from the divine Infant, as if the idea had been new and original. ("La Notte," Dresden Gal.) It occurs frequently before and since his time, and is founded on the legendary story quoted above, which describes the cave or stable filled with a dazzling and supernatural light.
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It is not often we find the Nativity represented as an historical event without the presence of the shepherds; nor is the supernatural announcement to the shepherds often treated as a separate subject: it generally forms part of the background of the Nativity; but there are some striking examples.