La huida a Egipto

Se desconoce la identidad del artista que pintó este panel, por lo que los historiadores del arte le han dado el nombre de un grupo de sus cuadros: imágenes de santas que aparecen retratadas de la cabeza a la cintura, a menudo delante de una gran escena de paisaje. 

Un paisaje del norte de Europa es el escenario de una historia relatada en el Evangelio de Mateo (2:13-18). En primer plano, José, María y Jesús huyen a Egipto para escapar de la furiosa conspiración del rey Herodes. Habiendo oído a los sabios del nacimiento de un rey judío y temiendo que el niño se convirtiera en una amenaza para su propio gobierno, el rey Herodes ordenó la muerte de todos los niños de dos años o menos en la pequeña ciudad de Belén y sus alrededores.

There are several scenes depicted in the background of the painting, including the image of a village where soldiers carry out Herod’s terrible command. The artist also depicted two events that were not mentioned in Matthew’s account but were popular stories during the Middle Ages, which were drawn from other writings of the same time period as the Bible. One scene shows the Holy Family resting beneath a date palm, which bends its branches for Joseph to reach its fruit. Another scene depicts soldiers on horseback, shown speaking with a man in a field of wheat that miraculously grew overnight. When the soldiers asked the farmer if he had recently seen a family traveling through the area, the farmer truthfully answered that the family had passed through when his wheat field was freshly planted. The soldiers were discouraged from pursuit, and the family was saved.

tags: narrativa, conflicto, familia, movimiento, supervivencia, animales, nubes