The Birth of Christ

A ruined brick house at night, overgrown with weeds. In one corner, very small, Mary and Joseph kneel, and little angels hold the child on a cloth. Above the ruin a cluster of cherubs tumbles through the dark.

Altdorfer worked in Regensburg and was among the first to give landscape and setting more room than the figures. The ruin is the main actor here; it is usually read as the old world into which the child is born. In the upper left a great light breaks through the clouds.