Adoration Of The Magi Essay Research Paper — страница 2

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is clearly depicted. Also, the gifts that the Magi are holding in the painting by di Nardo, are all the same and look as though they are gold, rather than gold, incense and myrrh. Whether these are merely containers with the true gifts inside of them, I do not know, but even if they are, this still strays from the original biblical story, because it gives no mention of the gifts being presented in golden cases. Another aspect that is different in di Nardo?s painting than it is in the Bible, is that in the painting, the Magus that bows down to worship Jesus has removed his crown and placed it on the ground in front of Jesus. There is no mention of this in the Bible. This goes along with the misrepresentation of the Magi as kings or Wise Men. There is also an additional part added

by di Nardo that is not mentioned in the Bible. The Bible simply states that the Magi ?saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him.? (Matthew 2:11) However, di Nardo portrays one Magus bowing down and kissing the baby Jesus? feet. Another outstanding difference between the Bible and di Nardo?s depiction of the story is that when the Magi go to pay respects to Jesus, he, Mary and Joseph are living in a house at that time. They did not visit Jesus on the night of his birth in a manger, contrary to yet another convention. Di Nardo clearly portrays the scene as taking place in a manger, shown by the prominent horse and cow placed centrally in the picture. It is also clear that the scene is taking place out of doors because there are grasses and weeds

growing out of the ground. The Bible clearly states that the Magi went into a house, showing that this was not the newborn Jesus that they were visiting, but a child who was several months old. There is also one detail mentioned in the biblical version that di Nardo, for whatever reason, chose to leave out of ?Adoration of the Magi.? The Bible makes a big point that the Magi followed a star to find Jesus, and that the start stopped over the house where the baby Jesus was. However, in di Nardo?s representation, the sky is clear and golden. The several differences between the painting and the actual story in the Bible show the vast misconceptions (or if these were not misconceptions, at least misrepresentations) of di Nardo when painting this picture. However, these misconceptions

were not di Nardo?s alone. Whether these were commonly held beliefs at the time that ?Adoration of the Magi? was painted, I do not know. What I do know however, is that when I initially started looking at the painting I did not notice anything ?wrong? with it. In fact, I was going to change my selection on the belief that the painting was ?too straight forward.? It was not until I started carefully looking at the notes I had taken about the picture and the notes I had taken about the verses in Matthew that I noticed these subtle differences. I had never read that section of the Bible before and through years of Christmas songs, and setting up the manger with Wise Men and the baby Jesus in my living room at Christmas time, I had come to believe that that there were three Wise Men.

They were ?three kings from Bethlehem.? They visited Jesus in the manger with the cows and the sheep. This shows that what is conventionally believed is not necessarily accurate. We see this clearly in ?Adoration of the Magi,? which initially looks perfectly okay to the popular Judeo-Christian eye, but upon closer inspection holds many of the common misconceptions of the three Wise Men.