The Holy Night

Fritz von Uhde's The Holy Night (1888) is one of the German Naturalist painter's most celebrated religious subjects — the Nativity depicted in a contemporary German peasant setting, with the Christ child born not in Bethlehem's stable but in a rough German farmhouse, surrounded by poor contemporary Germans rather than shepherds and Magi. Uhde's 'modern religious painting' was controversial precisely because it insisted that the sacred could be found in the ordinary present rather than the historical past. The Holy Night challenged both conservative religious taste and the academic tradition of costumed biblical illustration.

Uhde renders the Nativity scene with the cold winter light — artificial lamp light or candlelight in a dark interior — that transforms a naturalistic peasant interior into something visionary. His palette for this subject is characteristically cool, with the bright light source creating strong contrasts between illuminated and dark areas. The figures are rendered in contemporary dress and physiognomy, giving the sacred scene documentary immediacy. His handling of the light source — the glowing infant as the painting's radiating center — is technically sophisticated.