The first Biblical painting of a white Christmas

Christmas is a holiday that many people around the world, aside from Christians, look forward to and celebrate. People look forward to a White Christmas. Peter Bruegel the Elder’s “The Census at Bethlehem” (1566) is one of the first paintings that depicts a snowy Christmas.

Bruegel is well-known for depicting Biblical stories in his era. The background of the painting is in Bethlehem but shows a daily landscape of 16th century Netherlands, where the painter lived. On a snowy winter evening, people convene at an inn on the left side of the painting. They are visiting their hometown to report their family register at the order of the Roman Emperor. A scribe standing in front of a door writes down people's details while collecting taxes, while a soldier with a spear stands next by. The villagers are occupied with their usual daily work despite the cold weather, loading barrels or wood on wheelbarrows or slaughtering a pig. Children spin tops on the ice or sleigh while men line up to get drinks in front of a tavern.

Mary and Joseph are featured among the 200 characters in the painting. The people in the middle have left Nazareth and have just arrived in Bethlehem. Mary, pregnant, rides a donkey wearing a blue hood over her head, while Joseph leads the donkey to the inn while carrying a saw on his shoulder. The holy mother looks nothing special, plain-looking, and without a halo on her head. The artist depicts the mother of Christ as an everyday person. Joseph could not find a room over the crowd, so baby Jesus was born in a manger on a snowy day, hence a white Christmas.

The painting is a religious painting based on a Biblical story but depicts the daily life of everyday people. It was the first landscape painting depicting a snowy background and a white Christmas. The talent of a 16th-century artist displaying three different genres in one frame at the same time is astonishing.