Snow in Bethlehem
January 14, 2012
KRISTOR writes:
When I saw Bruegel‘s Numbering at Bethlehem posted to your site, it brought back a flood of physical memory. A print of that painting was hung in our dining room when I was a boy, and I so loved to stare at it. I know every detail of that painting as an old friend.
In our living room was the famous triptych by Hieronymus Bosch, the Garden of Earthly Delights. I spent a lot of time examining it, too, and it had a huge influence on my notions of Eden, paradise, and Hell.
John E. writes:
The Bruegel paintings of winter scenes you posted bring back memories to me of my paternal grandmother. She had what I only know how to describe as a docility to the cold weather experienced in my native northern Wisconsin. When the first snows would fly, and folks of her age especially found it difficult not to transplant their minds, if not their bodies, to Florida or Arizona for the duration of the season, she would welcome the weather by singing anticipatory Christmas carols, though these first snows would often come in October, or even once I remember, in the middle of September. When I was still quite young, my grandparents moved to the big city not too far from us–in fact, close enough for them to board (though free of charge, of course) at our house every weekend, when they would occupy my brother’s and my room, and my brother and I would then camp out wherever else in the house we could find a spot to sleep. It was more than once that I discovered my grandmother had cracked open the window next to her bed, even on very cold nights, to help her sleep. It’s true simply that she slept better in cooler temperatures, but as I recall it now, it resonates with her personality that she also quite welcomed the weather, as was fitting for her to do in the land she called her home, and to crack the window at least slightly on those cold nights was to show her native climate, which many could only shun as brutal during that time of the year, that she wouldn’t think of being so rude as to ignore it entirely, or to wish it weren’t so.
Bruegel must have had the same sort of docility to these elements as my grandmother, for why would someone put snow in Bethlehem when palm trees are so obviously at one’s disposal? Many would look at the paintings with their undeniable beauty and wonder at how the artist could come to such conclusions about temperatures so clearly below freezing. They would conclude that the artist was an idealist, and therefore the scenes idyllic, the shallow result of one who refuses to face reality. Yet I think it must have been precisely his ability to accept reality humbly, and not to foster an animosity against it, that allowed him truly to see and to recreate such beauty.
Docility gets a bad name these days. The most favorable images that come to mind from the word are of Bessie the milk cow thoughtlessly munching on grass, while passively planted in one spot in the pasture for hours. I suppose the war against docility is not entirely without reason, since the injudicious practice of it can cause much needless grief, often allowing evil to advance unopposed. Still, I believe that docility towards rightful authority is necessary for anyone who would live at peace in the world, and the constant refusal of a docile spirit will inevitably be a stumbling block to living happily in our world.
