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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Nativity

Nativity \Na*tiv"i*ty\, n.; pl. Nativies. [F. nativit['e], L. nativitas. See Native, and cf. Na["i]vet['E].]

  1. The coming into life or into the world; birth; also, the circumstances attending birth, as time, place, manner, etc.
    --Chaucer.

    I have served him from the hour of my nativity.
    --Shak.

    Thou hast left . . . the land of thy nativity.
    --Ruth ii. 11.

    These in their dark nativity the deep Shall yield us, pregnant with infernal flame.
    --Milton.

  2. (Fine Arts) (capitalized) A picture representing or symbolizing the early infancy of Christ. The simplest form is the babe in a rude cradle, and the heads of an ox and an ass to express the stable in which he was born.

  3. (Astrol.) A representation of the positions of the heavenly bodies as the moment of one's birth, supposed to indicate one's future destinies; a horoscope.

    The Nativity, the birth or birthday of Christ; Christmas day.

    To cast one's nativity or To calculate one's nativity (Astrol.), to find out and represent the position of the heavenly bodies at the time of one's birth.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
nativity

c.1200, from Old French nativité "birth" (12c.), from Late Latin nativitatem (nominative nativitas) "birth," from Latin nativus "born, native" (see native (adj.)). Late Old English had nativiteð, from earlier Old French nativited.

Wiktionary
nativity

n. 1 (context now dated English) Someone's birth; the place, time and circumstances of a birth. (from 14th c.) 2 (context also with capital initial English) The birth of Jesus. (from 14th c.) 3 (context Christianity English) The festival celebrating the birth of Jesus; Christmas Day. (from 12th c.) 4 (context astrology English) Someone's birth considered as a means of astrology; a horoscope associated with a person's birth. (from 14th c.)

WordNet
nativity
  1. n. the event of being born; "they celebrated the birth of their first child" [syn: birth, nascency, nascence] [ant: death]

  2. the theological doctrine that Jesus Christ had no human father; Christians believe that Jesus's birth fulfilled Old Testament prophecies and was attended by miracles; the Nativity is celebrated at Christmas [syn: Virgin Birth]

Wikipedia
Nativity (Correggio)

The Nativity (also known as The Holy Night (or La Notte) or as Adoration of the Shepherds) is a painting finished around 1529–1530 by the Italian painter Antonio da Correggio. It is housed in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden.

The work was commissioned from Correggio in October 1522 by Alberto Pratoneri for the family chapel in the church of San Prospero of Reggio Emilia: completed at the end of the decade, it was placed in the chapel in 1530. In a what was considered a minor sacrilege, the painting was absconded in 1640 by duke Francesco I d'Este and taken to his private gallery, it was moved to Dresden in 1746.

The artist, following the trail blazed by a number of celebrated works by Titian, interpreted a scene that is fully 'à la chandell' ("of the candle") and produced an outstanding result in the Chiaroscuro treatment of light. The scene pivots around the Child, surrounded by Mary's arms, with a group of shepherds on the left, of which the bearded figure is portrayed in the same position of Jerome in the Madonna with St. Jerome (c. 1523). On the right are the traditional presepe animals and St. Joseph. The upper left part features several angels reminiscent the ardite positions in Correggio's dome of the Cathedral of Parma, executed in the same years.

This work pointed the way toward the future Lombard investigation of luministic effects, and was used as a model by such painters as Camillo Procaccini, Luca Cambiasi, Guido Reni and Domenichino, and even later on, by Barocci and Maratta.

Nativity

Nativity may refer to:

  • Nativity of Jesus, the Gospel stories of the birth of Jesus
  • any depiction of the nativity scene, see Nativity of Jesus in art
    • Nativity (Campin), a 1420 panel painting by Robert Campin
    • Nativity (Christus), a devotional mid-1450s oil-on-wood panel painting by Petrus Christus
    • Nativity (Correggio), a painting finished around 1529–1530 by Antonio da Correggio
    • Nativity (Geertgen tot Sint Jans) or Nativity at Night, a painting of about 1490 by Geertgen tot Sint Jans
    • Nativity (Masaccio) or Desco da parto, a birthing-tray painted by Masaccio
    • Nativity scene or crèche, a three-dimensional display depicting the Nativity
  • Natal chart or nativity, or horoscope at or of the time of one's birth
  • Nativity! (film), a 2009 film
Nativity (Christus)

The Nativity is a devotional mid-1450s oil-on-wood panel painting by the Early Netherlandish painter Petrus Christus. It shows a nativity scene with grisaille archways and trompe-l'œil sculptured reliefs. Christus was influenced by the first generation of Netherlandish artists, especially Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, and the panel is characteristic of the simplicity and naturalism of art of that period. Placing archways as a framing device is a typical van der Weyden device, and here likely borrowed from that artist's Altar of Saint John and Miraflores Altarpiece. Yet Christus adapts these painterly motifs to a uniquely mid-15th century sensibility, and the unusually large panel – perhaps painted as a central altarpiece panel for a triptych – is nuanced and visually complex. It shows his usual harmonious composition and employment of one-point-perspective, especially evident in the geometric forms of the shed's roof, and his bold use of color. It is one of Christus's most important works. Max Friedländer definitely attributed the panel to Christus in 1930, concluding that "in scope and importance, [it] is superior to all other known creations of this master."

The overall atmosphere is one of simplicity, serenity and understated sophistication. It is reflective of the 14th-century Devotio Moderna movement, and contains complex Christian symbolism, subtly juxtaposing Old and New Testament iconography. The sculpted figures in the archway depict biblical scenes of sin and punishment, signaling the advent of Christ's sacrifice, with an over-reaching message of the "Fall and Redemption of humankind". Inside the archway, surrounded by four angels, is the Holy Family; beyond, a landscape extends into the far background.

Art historians have suggested completion dates ranging from the early 1440s to the early 1460s, with c. 1455 seen as probable. The panel was acquired by Andrew Mellon in the 1930s, and was one of several hundreds from his personal collection donated to the National Gallery of Art in Washington. It has suffered damage and was restored in the early 1990s for an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Nativity (Campin)

Nativity is a 1420 panel painting by the Early Netherlandish painter Robert Campin. The work is noted for distilling three episodes from the life of Christ into a single panel, rather than presenting them in triptych format. The scenes are, from left to right, the birth of Christ, the Adoration of the Magi and the adoration of the shepherds. The painting is harshly realistic; the Child Jesus and his parents are shown in poverty; the figures crowd within a single space shared with animals, in a room with a thatched roof with a hole and broken-down walls. In this Campin abandons the traditional narrative.

The Virgin is presented as in her teens, Joseph as a much older man. Four angels hover above them, holding gifts. Two of them hold a banner with lettering addressed to midwives in the lower portion of the panel; it reads "Tangue puerum et sanabaris" (touch the child and you shall be healed). From the little record we have of Campin, he was a major pioneer and innovator of painting, and here his appeal to the poverty of the Holy Family. His skill with oil paint is reflected in the positioning of the central figures in the extreme foreground, giving the panel a very tight and focused feel, despite the highly detailed background details and landscape. The hut is slanted compared to the outline of the frame, a device later adopted by Rogier van der Weyden.

Campin places a landscape complete with a view of a lake beyond of the stable, just above the two midwives. Reinforcing the idea of redemption, Salome is given a prominent position, facing outwards towards the viewer in the mid foreground.

The panel is housed in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon.

Usage examples of "nativity".

It was known that while Count Joscelin of Edessa had been celebrating the season of the Nativity at one of his estates upon the upper reaches of the Euphrates, Moslem hordes had fallen upon his principal city on the northern outposts of the Latin Kingdom, breached its walls, laid low its altars, and taken its burghers into captivity.

State among the citizens of the United States in the exercise of the elective franchise, or in the right to hold office in any State, on account of race, color, nativity, property, education, or religious creed.

For some, considering only the cause of filiation, which is nativity, put two filiations in Christ, just as there are two nativities.

For if we consider the adequate causes of filiation, we must needs say that there are two filiations in respect of the twofold nativity.

Temporal nativity would cause a real temporal filiation in Christ if there were in Him a subject capable of such filiation.

The third law applied to insults, batteries, wounds, blows, torts, effusion of blood, and similar injuries inflicted at the season of the Nativity, the week of Pasque, and at Pentecost.

They were two cousins, almost like to twins, Except that from the catalogue of sins Nature had rased their love--which could not be But by dissevering their nativity.

We see that certain children of the same age, nativity and race, nay, from the same household, under the tutorship of one teacher, differ in their minds and comprehensions.

Consequently, nativity is attributed to the person or hypostasis as to the proper subject of being born, but not to the nature.

Objection 1: It would seem that temporal nativity is not to be attributed to Christ.

Emesa in Syria had a royal nativity, he solicited and obtained her hand.

When the passions of the hour shall have subsided, and the past shall be reviewed with discrimination and justice, the question must arise in every reflecting mind, Why did such men as these expatriate themselves, and surrender all the advantages which they had won by a life of honorable effort in the land of their nativity?

Isidore of Pelusium, in Egypt, mentions the Theophany and the Nativity of our Saviour, according to the flesh, as two different festivals.

On my second visit, to attend the Nativity play, the place had been throbbing with parents, teachers and governors and there had been a Christmassy atmosphere in the frosty air.

None of these, except the feast of the Holy Innocents, have any special connection with the Nativity or the Infancy, and the popular customs connected with them will come up for consideration in our Second Part.