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T
he A.G. Leventis Gallery presented its first
ever international temporary exhibition
Nativitiy Stories
, co-curated by Myrto Hatzaki
(curator of the Paris Collection) and Loukia
Loizou Hadjigavriel (Director of the Gallery),
from 5 December 2014 – 2 March 2015.
According to the Gallery’s Education Officer,
Katerina Stephanides, the exhibition looks not
just at the Nativity, but also how the story has
changed over time.
“How the history of art has shaped the relationship
between text and image. Imagine,” she says,
explaining that this is a technique she often uses
with school groups, “our modern day idea of the
Nativity scene – Mary sitting up, holding a naked
baby Jesus and surrounded by the adoring Magi
– as the culmination of a chronological game of
Chinese Whispers…”
Painters through the ages were influenced,
she suggests, not just by the artists who had
gone before, but also the prevailing mood and
dictates of the time. St Bridget’s Revelation
in the 1300s, for example, greatly shaped the
succeeding iconography: “From a prone Virgin
Mary and swaddled Jesus, we suddenly change
to Mary venerating a naked baby. And in a
similar manner, the Council of Trent ruled that,
in the 1500s, the midwives should no longer
be present – this, after all, was an immaculate
conception, and anything ‘inappropriate’ should
be removed.”
In effect, then, the exhibition is aptly titled, for it
is really all about storytelling; the story not just
of the Nativity, but also of how perceptions of
this best-loved scene have changed over time.
Describing a roughly chronological expedition
down the ages, it is a journey from traditional
Nativity Stories
5 December 2014 – 2 March 2015
Order of St John - Rhodes Missal Shepherds I
Order of St John - Rhodes Missal Shepherds II
Byzantinedepictionsthroughwesternmediaeval
art to the 17
th
century and the aftermath of the
Baroque period into Modernism. Comprising
nearly 60 different works – most of which are
on loan from internationally renowned galleries
and museums – the exhibition aims at bringing
a new perspective to the relationship between
holy texts and art, focusing on the juxtaposition
of images and words.
And what emerges is a Nativity that’s not merely a
single narrative, but an exciting and multifaceted
story. From the 13
th
century cameo keepsake to
great Cypriot artist Adamantios Diamantis’ oil on
canvas
The Nativity of 1959
, this is an exhibition
which utterly transports the viewer. There is a
