The Nativity, After Martin Schongauer

Stamp of the workshop of the artist CAG at the bottom left, small gaps in the lower corners A brilliant draftsman, Camille-Auguste Gastine benefited from the Ingresque influence diffused within the Parisian artistic milieu in the 19th century. A student of the historicist painter Paul Delaroche at the Beaux-Arts, he participated in numerous wall decoration projects. In 1856, he collaborated on the decoration of the abbey of Saint-Germain des-Près alongside Hippolyte Flandrin then on the decoration of the Saint-Joseph chapel of the Saint-André Cathedral in Bordeaux with Sébastien Cornu as well as the Chapelle du Château de Broglie with Savinien Petit. The artist draws here on tracing paper a series of engravings after the masters of the Nordic Renaissance (Martin Schongauer (1448-1497), Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Hans Bandung Grien (1484-1545), Albrecht Altdorfer (1430 -1538), Lucas de Leyde (circa 1494-1533). He drew inspiration from it to stimulate his creativity, perfect his art and the fluidity of his compositions; Our sheet is the very example. "He believed that nature was eternal, constantly reborn to itself to reproduce the same form, but that the artist had to seize its contrasts and harmonies to compose infinitely new combinations, new expressions of feeling and intelligence His conviction was that between the Assumption of Raphael and that of Murillo, there was always room for new creations on the same subject and by the same means of form, color and feeling.”1 Ill. 1. Martin Schongauer, The Nativity, circa 1470-75, copper engraving, ink on pa filigree pier, 170 x 258 mm, Unterlinden Museum, Colmar, inv. 89.6.1. Also a goldsmith, the one whom Albrecht Dürer considered his master is above all known for his activity as an engraver; There are 116 different engraved works, all signed. He is the first monogrammist whose identity is known: on all his engravings his M+S monogram appears. His engraved work is essentially made up of religious subjects taken from the New Testament: the Childhood of Christ, his Passion, the Life of the Virgin. His other religious subjects are devoted to figures of apostles, saints, saints and medallions illustrating the symbols of the Evangelists... The art of "Beau Martin" combines with great finesse the gentleness of the painters of the Upper Rhine with the striking naturalism of the Flemish primitives. The distribution of his engravings in Europe left a dazzling imprint on the Nordic Renaissance. In our engraving (Ill.1), Schongauer uses the medieval narrative technique known as “continuous narrative”: in the same image are evoked the Nativity, the Announcement and the Adoration of the Shepherds. The artist substitutes the biblical nativity iconography of the manger for a ruined Gothic building. As a fine observer of nature, the engraver from Colmar sprinkles his work with plant details: the vines climbing along the wall, the ruin, the plants growing in the foreground among the stones and the wild grasses growing in the crevices. While the Virgin, melancholy and of a beauty with ideal features, looks adoringly at the little Jesus, Joseph has eyes only for Mary. He holds a lantern above him to emphasize the nocturnal character of the Nativity. In the upper right corner of the print, three angels fly above the vault to celestially celebrate with joy this happy earthly event.