AMORY: This nativity is by the Florentine painter Lorenzo Monaco.

KANTER: If we look at the nativity, you can see that all of the necessary actors in the scene are present. The Christ child lies in the very center of the composition, the virgin kneels to the left, adoring him, St. Joseph to the right, looking not at the child but instead up to the vision of the angel announcing to the shepherds in the background. And behind the Christ-child, the ox and the ass eating at the manger.

AMORY: Notice the way that Lorenzo has divided the composition into different zones of color. The background landscape on the left has a subdued, moonlit glow. A similar effect appears in the vignette on the upper right, warmed by the radiant angel. The figures in the foreground provide startling contrast—Mary in her exquisitely tinted lilac and blue dress, Joseph in his rose-red cloak, and the resplendent Christ Child in the middle of the composition.

KANTER: But the story is only part of the effect of the painting. More to the point is how the figures are arranged to fill the very odd shape of the panel. The roof of the shed, for example, running exactly parallel to the borders of the frame of the painting in the center. The poles supporting the shed dividing the scene exactly into thirds. The St. Joseph and the angel occupying only the right third. Christ occupying exactly the center-- a landscape filling the left. It's as much about organization and decoration, about the distribution of color and of light, as it is about the telling of the Christmas story.