The Angel's annunciation to the Shepherds - Maitre des Corteges' and Abraham Bloemart, Handel's Messiah, and Let the Stable Still Astonish - Leslie Leyland Fields

I hope you're enjoying this themed study as much as I am!  Maitre des Corteges' painting has some interesting details.  At first I thought it was a cave or a building that the angels were peeking into, but looking closer I think that it is perhaps just the heavy layer as if there was a barrier between earth and heaven he is depicting. I think his animals and people look fairly realistic and skillfully painted. The clothing is interesting. The second painting is by the Dutch painter Abraham Bloemart who was also featured last week.  It would be interesting to compare his two works.  

Maitre des Corteges - Annunciation to the Shepherds

Abraham Bloemaert - The Annunciation to the Shepherds

Here are the links again to Messiah: A Sacred Oratorio or Handel's Messiah.  One of the beautiful things about George Fredrick Handel's Messiah Oratorio is that it is full of Scripture.  

This beautiful poem this week:

Let the Stable Still Astonish

by Leslie Leyland Fields

Let the stable still astonish:
Straw-dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child--
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough.
Who would have chosen this?
Who would have said,
“Yes,Let the God of Heaven and Earth
Be born in this place”?
Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms
Of our hearts
And says,
“Yes,Let the God of Heaven and Earth
Be born in this place.”