All Peoples Praise the Lord

Christmas: the joyous message goes around the world.

The prince of peace is at home all over the world. The figurative representation of the birth of Christ which began to emerge in the mid-sixteenth century, first in Italy and Spain; and then in southern German churches and royal courts, has since travelled all around the globe.

Artist on all continent have brought the divine child to their respective countries. They have followed in the footsteps of Francis of Assisi who told people who were unable to read the story of Christmas with the aid of the figures in the crib. Cribs from all over the world are now a typical symbol of Christmas.

In the Occident a winter storm is raging: in the Orient there is a mild desert breeze: in the Southern hemisphere the Christmas feast falls at the height of summer: the child in the crib sleeps under stone-splitting tropical sun and the ox has become a water buffalo. The Makonde carver's from Tanzania bed the Baby Jesus with his fuzzy black hair in a tree trunk of Jet-black ebony.

Only the Christmas messengers, the angles with mighty wings, were not carved from this single piece of wood. The Baby Jesus, before whom the heavens and the earth bow down, has hardly and childish features. The idea behind the "old" face: before the sons of Africa have completed the tribal initiation rites, they do not fully belong to the village community. The Yoruba artists in Africa work with small figures.

The Nigerians carve a shepherd who brings the Son of God a rooster as a sign of worship: a generous gift in a poor village. The Yoruba developed their figures after a priest had read them the Gospel of Luke......

By Ursula Kals