Nativity

Correggio's Nativity (c. 1529–30) at the Gemäldegalerie Dresden, known as 'La Notte' (The Night), is one of the most celebrated nocturnal paintings in European art — the Christ Child as the sole source of light illuminating the entire composition. The concept of Christ as the Light of the World made physically present in the darkness of the stable was one of the most powerful theological ideas in Christian imagery, and Correggio's realization of it as an actual visual phenomenon — the light emanating from the swaddled infant, illuminating faces and casting shadows — was technically unprecedented and enormously influential on subsequent nocturnal religious painting from Honthorst to Rembrandt.

The extraordinary treatment of light radiating from the Christ Child to illuminate the surrounding figures creates one of the first true nocturnal scenes in Italian painting, with warm and cool tones masterfully contrasted.