Throughout Christian history, artists have situated the stories of the Bible in their own cultural contexts: landscapes, buildings, clothing, bodies, gestures, and faces were drawn from the world around them. In this way, they brought the sacred story close to home.

It should, therefore, come as no surprise to Europeans when artists from other cultures do the same. But it may unsettle them.

This work was created by Kim Ki-chang, a leading Korean artist of the twentieth century who grew up in a Protestant family. At the age of eight, he contracted typhoid fever and lost his hearing. Thereafter, faith became an indispensable support for him. 

When civil war broke out between North and South Korea in 1950, after the Japanese occupation, Kim Ki-chang and his wife had to flee to the South. In 1952, amidst extreme hardship and religious tension (he had visions and converted to the Catholic Church), he created a 30-part cycle of drawings on silk depicting the life of Jesus.

Kim Ki-chang did not set the story of Jesus in his immediate present, but in the Chosŏn period (1392–1910), when Korea was an independent kingdom. In doing so, he recalled a time without foreign rule and with a rich cultural tradition.

The Christmas scene is set in a large stable. There is no landscape to be seen. Instead, viewers have the impression of standing in the stable themselves. At the centre lies the newborn child. But, surprisingly, his face is turned away to regard his mother and the star that hangs above her, under the roof.

Luke’s Gospel indicates that Mary is only betrothed (mnēsteuō) to be married. The artist, however, has chosen to depart from that account here, and to encourage us to imagine Mary differently, for she is wearing a mantle-veil—the traditional outfit of married women. To her right, leaning against a post, stands Joseph with folded hands. He is wearing the clothes of a scholar: light blue robe, hat, white socks, and leather shoes.

Seven women (not shepherds or kings) enter from the left, bringing food for the mother—a widespread custom in Korea. In the foreground, a rooster pecks for grain—not a reference to Peter’s later betrayal, for in Korea this bird symbolizes hope and a good beginning. There is, here, no trace of suffering. Rather, this work expresses the longing for a home in a time of terrible homelessness.

References

Ziesak, Anne-Katrin, et al. (eds). 2017. Der Luther Effekt: 500 Jahre Protestantismus in der Welt. 2017, Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin (Berlin: Hirmer)