One could easily—and without doubt interestingly—tell the story of these three pictorial representations of Christ’s circumcision as exemplary of the artistic evolution of early modern art. In 150 years, Italian painting evolved from a severe but harmonious Renaissance aesthetic, evidently reworking classical references (Andrea Mantegna), through Mannerist horror vacui and playful artifice (Giulio Romano), all the way to proto-Baroque emotionally charged spectacle (Federico Barocci).

However, in light of the specific subject matter, implicating the integration of a newly born person into a community, it would be even more rewarding to visually trace the differences in the three historical moments’ conception of the relation between individuals and societies. The single verse these paintings translate into images includes two aspects of a newborn’s entry into collectivity: the physical marking of the circumcision, but also, less simple to visually depict, the naming of the new community member.

Moreover, the identity of the young boy adds many more layers of meaning to the ritual: as Leo Steinberg demonstrates in his groundbreaking, now classic The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion (1983), theological discussions of Jesus’s genitals, and particularly of the ceremony in which they take centre-stage, abound. The Christian approach to circumcision is an intricate combination of reverence, acceptance as a historical inevitability, rejection, and disgust, and the paintings—quite rare—depicting the scene as a principal subject had to navigate their way through all these contradictory reactions. Show and hide, repress and celebrate; artists were obliged to negotiate the delicate balance between redemption and what might have seemed to them like mutilation; bloodletting and cleansing; the spiritual and the basely physical.

These three painters represent that important double event of naming and circumcision in three different formats, each expressing its own, diverse spirit: as a solemn ceremony, as a crowded festivity, and in the guise of a warm family gathering. The setting of Mantegna’s Presentation in the Temple, also representing Christ’s circumcision, is monumental, its verticality somewhat dwarfing the figures, emphasizing how the meaning of what is being ritually done to Christ exceeds the horizons of any one individual. The Paduan painter includes a small representation of what we would now call ‘civil society’ in this otherwise minimalist representation, in order to remind us that the circumcision is not only a seal of relationship between God and an individual person, but also the business of society at large.

Giulio Romano also diminishes the protagonists’ scale, although he does so not by comparison with the surrounding architecture but by making the holy family and the priest just one group amidst a huge crowd. The humility of God’s son joining the community of mortals is thus foregrounded, counterbalancing Jesus’s appearance—quite distinct from that of an ordinary eight-day-old baby. Giulio also reminds us that the circumcision, perhaps in parallel to baptism (the Christian equivalent more familiar to his audience), is a festive event—there are gifts presented and even bodily movements reminiscent of dancing. As the only one of the three artists choosing to depict the bloody and painful circumcising act taking place, the knife concretely touching Christ’s foreskin, Giulio might have thought that the inclusion of a joyful crowd, seemingly oblivious to the reality of the act, would be reassuring for the viewers.

After the upheavals of the mid-sixteenth century—Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and wars of religion—both theological niceties and frenetic partying seemed anachronistic and far from the needs of Church authorities. Barocci responds to the new situation by inventing a mode of painting as remote from Mantegna’s serious erudition as it is from Giulio’s sophisticated, somewhat futile gracefulness: an art seeking to speak directly to the heart of the faithful. Depicting the circumcision, he evokes the event’s character as an intimate, family gathering: entry into society passes first by integration into one’s kin, even if the definition of a ‘family’ is here enlarged to include anyone feeling intimately connected to the momentous event.

And who is not concerned with that specific circumcision? According to Christianity, Jesus’s shed blood did much more than signify his own belonging to the Jewish community, more even than confirming the Jews’ covenant with their God. The cutting of the baby’s flesh inaugurated the universal redemption guaranteed by God’s incarnation. Barocci’s undeniable pictorial grace is the aesthetic manifestation of divine Grace, striking when compared to Mantegna’s sub lege (‘under the law’) atmosphere, adequate for Old Testament scenes (two of which indeed appear in the lunette reliefs above), not to mention Giulio’s almost pagan carelessness.

References

Steinberg, Leo. 1996 [1983]. The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion (Chicago: The University of Chicago)