CHRISTMAS 2006

Motif: Altar stone screen “Nativity” from the parish church of St. Stephen in Luka Šipanska, 15th century, Venetian painter Pantaleone, tempera on wood In the background of our Christmases there is a whole range of inherited Christmases. Our personal ones, all the more intimate the longer time back we go, while we still had all those dear people from our world round us. Those Christmases other people told us about to present us with provisions of their own warmth; those we read about and identified with; and, finally, those we saw on the paintings, structures of imagination through many centuries. Particularly following Saint Francis and his first creche, the first animals, the first brightness of the golden poverty between the straw and the stars. Those painted Christmases are not linked exclusively to the time of holidays. They make the holiday within reach in the course of the whole calendar year. Whenever we look at the scene of the holy night with the Infant, Christmas spreads around us – whether we have it or not. We could draw up Christmas itineraries and travel from place to place with the most beautiful picture, creche, stained-glass window ... The connecting lines, the contour lines and isobaths, would draw up a really endearing homeland. The journeys could last for a long time and there could be many of them because our Christmas heritage is very rich. In a number of years the Croatian Post has tried to realize such a journey around the Croatian land and time, discovering Christmases of different native regions and periods – from ancient times to the present days. We inherited a beautiful and very old Christmas from the parish church of St. Stephen in Luka Šipanska on the island of Šipan. According to the minutely detailed research of our eminent art historian Kruno Prijatelj, this Christmas originates from about the year 1450, possibly somewhat earlier. Its author, according to the attribution of Kruno Prijatelj accepted in Italy, is the Venetian painter master Pantaleone. It is tempera on wood, forty-nine centimetres in height by thirty-eight centimetres in width, in a Late Gothic frame that on its lower part shows some Renaissance traits. In the same way the Late Gothic feeling of the space opens to the Renaissance modelling and the inclination towards depth. Both the painting and its frame are filled with gold and ultramarine, brown and blue, poetic motifs from simple lives – let us just observe the minute fence round the cradle made of wattles, the small barrel, roof tiles, little flowers ... the benevolence and modesty of the animals, angels who carry ribbons with Christmas greetings ... At the same time there are also signs of holiness, aureoles and then Mary’s wondrous robe made up of gold and blueness, with roses and dog-rose berries, as a sign needed for the recognition of some other, parallel level ... On the bottom of the picture, on the lower part of the frame, there are some faded texts, unravelled so far: these are waiting to be deciphered by contemporary restoration means. This picture would equally demand the disposal of traces of an inappropriate restoration applied some seventy years ago. As Kruno Prijatelj says, this Christmas painting is linked to two local names. First it is the name of the parish priest don Ante Makjanić whose notes about this work of art from the first half of the twentieth century have secured him a place in history. From these notes we also find out the name of Canon Deani who, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, presented the painting to the church where it is still placed nowadays. Let us remember them on the occasion of the Christmas holidays, thankful for this scene that belongs to the most poetic ones that we have inherited. Željka Čorak