Description
The shepherds were the poorest of workers. An angel tells them to go to a small shed in the fields. There, they find a new born baby and his parents, homeless refugees in the winter night.
Swanson first painted the Shepherds in 1969, layering different colors of crayon, then scratching patterns of varying depth, to reveal the color desired color, a technique called Crayon Sgraffito. In 2017, he revisited the painting, reimagining it, enhancing and reworking the image, with the experience and techniques he had developed over the intervening decades, preserving the freshness and simplicity of the original.
The artwork is an overflowing cornucopia of brightly colored patterns. The sky is lit with numerous dazzling stars and the central image is surrounded by a border of rainbow colors.
The beautiful tradition of families making creches (or Nacimiento) with many figures and animals in miniature, to celebrate the holiday, inspired Swanson. Combining this powerful image with the words from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 1:27-28), gave the Christmas story a more socially relevant context, bringing it into our every day lives.
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THE SHEPHERDS – History of the Image
Based on the 1969 sgraffito painting, the 2018 giclee of THE SHEPHERDS incorporates new sketches, line work, and small paintings, digitally combined and refined over 18 months. |
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THE SHEPHERDS |
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THE SHEPHERDS |
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Shepherds – Reflections
and commentaries of other writers and theologians. |
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Gertrud Mueller Nelson |
Who are the first to listen to angels? Who are the first to be shown our poor saviour? The poorest of workers, the shepherds who smell of their sheep. They are pure enough and simple enough to know that a small baby in straw is, in fact, their saviour. There in a shed at the edge of the hills, his refugee parents have hewn out a corner against the wind. There between animal breath and a pile of manure lies our redeemer as a helpless baby. God chooses to send us God’s son, in the lowliest, earthiest place, because there he is closest to each of us. That is the colorful world, the real world the artwork wants to show: a sky-full of stars, and THE star. And a border of rainbows. |
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Carmela Lacayo |
Always one of my favorite themes, I love your new work! The colors, the legend, the simplicity of your story, but the message in this work… I love the shepherd narrative because I personally have stayed involved in actual sheep herding, I take my dogs for herding in Camarillo. Shepherding can be called one of the jobs on earth. The Nativity narrative has always touched me because of the mystery- Jesus came to us among the shepherds and their sheep- the poor, those that lived close to the earth- the simple land and the sheep! That’s why I love the animals. |
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G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
English Writer, Poet, Philosopher The Spirit of Christmas Published 1985 |
Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home. But the other sort of paradox is not intentional and is certainly not beautiful. It is bad enough that we cannot altogether disentangle the tragedy of poverty. It is bad enough that the birth of the homeless, celebrated at hearth and altar, should sometimes synchronise with the death of the homeless in workhouses and slums. But we need not rejoice in this universal restlessness brought upon rich and poor alike; and it seems to me that in this matter we need a reform of the modern Christmas. |
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Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
American Poet, Writer Leaves of Grass, 1855 |
And as to me, I know nothing else but miracles. |
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Mawi Asgedom
Ethiopian Refugee, Author Of Beetles and Angels: 2002 |
Treat all people–even the most unsightly beetles–as though they were angels sent from heaven. |
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Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) Irish Poet The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes |
Human beings suffer, They torture one another, They get hurt and get hard. No poem or play or song Can fully right a wrong Inflicted and endured. The innocent in gaols Beat on their bars together. A hunger-striker’s father Stands in the graveyard dumb. The police widow in veils Faints at the funeral home. History says, don’t hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme. So hope for a great sea-change On the far side of revenge. Believe that further shore Is reachable from here. Believe in miracle And cures and healing wells.Call miracle self-healing: The utter, self-revealing Double-take of feeling. If there’s fire on the mountain Or lightning and storm And a god speaks from the skyThat means someone is hearing The outcry and the birth-cry Of new life at its term. |
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Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997)
American Poet, Philosopher September on Jessore Road, 1971 Excerpt from the poem, written after visiting Bangladesh during the Liberation War |
How many fathers in woe How many sons nowhere to go? How many daughters nothing to eat How many uncles with swollen sick feet Millions of babies in pain Millions of mothers in rain Millions of brothers in woe Millions of children nowhere to go |
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Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)
Dutch Painter Letter to his brother Theo Van Gogh, April 3, 1878 via Learning from Henri Nouwen and Vincent van Gogh, Carol Berry, 2018, InterVarsity Press |
Happy is he who has faith in God, for he shall, although not without struggle and sorrow and life’s difficulties, overcome in the end. One cannot do better than, amidst everything in all circumstances, in all places and at all times, to hold fast to the thought of God and to strive to learn more of Him; one can do this through the Bible as well as through all other things.
It is good to go on believing that everything is full of wonder, more so than one can comprehend, for that is the truth; it is good to remain sensitive and lowly and meek in heart, even though one has to hide that feeling sometimes, because that is often necessary; it is good to be very learned about the things that are hidden from the wise and the educated of the world but are revealed instinctively to the poor and simple… |
