Nazareth, ca. 1946

Georges Rouault is considered to be one of the most important French expressionists. At the age of fourteen he trained as a stained-glass artist and later became a pupil of the symbolist painter Gustave Moreau. After Moreau’s death in 1898, Rouault gradually developed an entirely personal expressionist style, His paintings have certain similarities to stained glass: broad, black outlines and rich, dark areas of colour in a heavily textured mass of paint. In Nazareth we see Mary and Joseph with the baby Jesus in the foreground. The sacred nature of the work derives not so much from the subject as from the treatment of the landscape: the light appears to come from behind the painting, especially in the striking contrast between red and blue, which gives the work a warm glow and luminosity.