The Flight Into Egypt

         As our communities brace for threatened mass deportations of immigrants carried out by people who claim to speak for Christianity, it seems a good time to continue my series of block prints covering the Christmas story, and move to the next chapter: the Flight into Egypt.

        Not long after the visit from the Three Wise Men (see block prints in my previous post), Joseph was warned in a dream that Herod wanted to kill the baby Jesus, and that he should take his family into another country where they would be safe from persecution.  They went to Egypt, where they lived for about four years as immigrant refugees, until it was safe from them to return to their homeland.  Given that Jesus preached so much about welcoming the stranger, I can’t help thinking that his own family’s experience as refugees informed his understanding of how to

love “neighbors” in a much more inclusive sense.

        The image of the Flight into Egypt has been a popular one to illustrate.  I’ll start once again with Albrecht Dürer, whose version is beautifully detailed with a little bridge, date palms, grapevines, an ox along for the journey, and a cloud of putti in the upper right.  Mary is smiling, though Joseph seems to be a little bowed down by his concerns.

        Albrecht Altdorfer, working at around the same time, has a less technically virtuosic version, but I still like it.  This time Joseph’s face is turned away and Jesus looks a bit like a rag doll, but Mary is again smiling gently, no doubt secure in the love that surrounds her.  My favorite parts of this one are the skyline in the distance and the arabesque clouds above.

        Switching gears to a piece from the 1940s, this linocut is by Peter Agostini, which includes only Mary, Jesus, and the donkey.  I don’t much like this one!  Mary looks like the Emperor’s Royal Guard from Star Wars (good thing she’s at least painted in blue instead of red), and she’s all out of proportion for the poor muppet-faced donkey.  Still, it’s variety, right?

        Moving on, here’s a twentieth century one I like much better, by C. Pál Molnár.  This has lots of bold, geometric texture to give bold lighting and dark shadows.  Mary isn’t smiling here, but she is looking down at the baby held to her heart.  Joseph just looks tired.  Like Altdorfer, we’ve got a town in the background, and like Dürer we’ve got angels in the sky.  These angels, however, are huge and sturdy as a roof!

        I kept my focus pretty narrow in selecting these versions, and there are two popular types of “Flight into Egypt” I did not represent.  As artists were beginning to explore landscape as a subject in its own right, they often used the Holy Family’s journey as an excuse to paint large, beautiful landscapes.  Today, however, I chose block prints that focus more on the family rather than the landscape through which they travel.  I’ve also chosen pieces that show them on the road, rather than resting idyllically beneath a palm, which was another popular trope.  “The Rest on the Flight into Egypt” always makes a point of how miraculously they were cared for, but I think we should remember that leaving your home is never easy, and fleeing into the unknown because you're desperate to protect your family is even harder.  I hope we can all remember that whatever we do for the least of these brothers and sisters, we do to that family who had to flee their homeland and seek refuge in a foreign country two thousand years ago.

[Pictures: The Flight into Egypt, woodcut by Albrecht Dürer, ca. 1503-5 (Image from The Cleveland Museum of Art);

The Flight into Egypt, woodcut by Albrecht Altdorfer, ca. 1515 (Image from The Cleveland Museum of Art);

Flight into Egypt, linocut with watercolor by Peter Agostini, 1940s (Image from The Philadelphia Museum of Art);

Flight into Egypt, wood engraving by C. Pál Molnár, 1933 (Image from The Cleveland Museum of Art).]