The Adoration of the Kings

What little description exists of the Nativity, briefly detailed in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, has been crystalized by artists into a tradition in which the infant Jesus, lying in a humble manger, is attended by the Virgin; three wise men, or magi, bearing gifts; and animals such as oxen and sheep. Renaissance treatments tended to dress the wise men, astrologers of the Persian court, in fashionable court clothes of the time. Jan Gossaert’s minutely detailed Adoration of the Kings (1510–15) is no exception. But while many works stick to the traditional rustic setting, Gossaert here sets the scene among classical ruins—thick flagstones crumbling beneath the figures’ feet—to literally symbolize the crumbling of the pagan order and the birth of a new spiritual leadership.

The Adoration of the Kings  throws together some thirty figures on an architectural background, varied in detail, massive in shape and fanciful in ornament. This painting is now on display at the National Gallery, which bought it in 1911. Gossaert surprises the viewer with pompous costume and flaring contrasts of tone. His figures are often rigid and conventional. The landscape which shows through the colonnades is adorned with towers and steeples.