a visit with jesus

 Bible Art

Christ in the House of His Parents (The Carpenter's Shop)
Artist: John Everett Millais
 1849-50    Painting

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Millais here depicts a young Christ just after his hand has been accidentally impaled by a nail. His father, Joseph, is in anxious close attendance, leaning over his workshop table, while, Mary, his mother, kneels beside him in an attempt to provide comfort. His grandmother, Anne, still holds the pliers she has used to remove the nail, while Christ's cousin, John the Baptist, brings him a dish of water as a balm for his wound. 

This oil on canvas painting is housed in the   Collection of the Tate, United Kingdom 

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary
Artist: Vermeer
 1654-56    Painting

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In this painting, Christ sits in the house of his close friends, the sisters Martha and Mary. While Martha is busy cleaning, cooking for, and serving the son of God, Mary sits calmly and contentedly at his feet and listens to him preach. Martha rebukes Christ for not encouraging the other sister to get up and help with the chores but Christ explains that while Martha is "worried and upset by many things," Mary needs "only one," that being the word of God. Martha was seen to be a personification of the active Catholic path where good deeds and humility led to salvation, but Mary is thought to be a symbol for the quiet, contemplative life of Protestantism, which required only the word of God for redemption. 

This is one of the rare Biblical depictions by Vermeer, the painting radically depicted an intimate scene with Christ as if it were an ordinary, everyday scene. The artist Diego Velázquez would go on to recreate his own version of this iconic scene.