Nativity

Baldung's Nativity from 1520 is a mature treatment of the Christmas subject demonstrating his command of the nocturnal light effects that had been a testing ground for painters since Hugo van der Goes. The Christ Child as a source of supernatural illumination—the convention of divine light emanating from the infant—gave painters an opportunity for the dramatic contrast of warm sacred light against cold nocturnal darkness that was among the most technically demanding effects in early sixteenth-century painting. Baldung's 1520 version brings his developed mature technique to a subject he had treated in earlier versions, and the 1520 date—at the height of the Reformation crisis in Strasbourg—gives the traditional Catholic Nativity subject additional resonance as an affirmation of traditional devotional practice under pressure from Reformation theological criticism.

The supernatural luminosity of the Christ Child illuminates the scene, creating dramatic light effects that Baldung renders with characteristic expressive power.