This set from Guerrero, Mexico, is a good example of the local lacquerware craft. The house is no longer the traditional shack without any walls. It has all the trappings of a comfortable middle-class residence: a solid roof of red tiling, a portal not just a simple door, and picture windows with rounded arches. Its most distinctive features are the walls. They are covered with painted flowers. Thus richly decorated, this little palace shelters a host of figures, among them two dogs barking unisono to greet the newborn King. This is flower power that lasts.

Peppers and Snow
Jil Gurule
USA

The untrained eye may get lost in this amazing variety of people and animals who seem to have escaped a beautifully illustrated book of fairytales. Luckily, there is this imposing structure of piled up little homes which somewhat contains the abundance of colors and the flow of village life. We are no longer looking at a single house, but at a whole village. Built in the style of a southwestern adobe, the village evokes the image of a staircase leading the visitor on and up to meet the rising sun. The Holy Family dressed in their finest Sunday best is not confined to a particular space. They do not need shelter. The village and its people is their home. The outside walls of the village are decorated with chaplets of peppers and slivers of snow. They are symbols of life: peppers for spice, snow for hardship. The real spice of life is made of both peppers and snow for all of us, the Holy Family included.

Illumination in Wood
Jan Rejman
Czech Republic

 This elaborately carved piece of sixteen figures is set in and around a stable of humble style and modest proportions. Open on three sides and supported in front by two posts, the structure bears resemblance to the refuge where the future founders of Rome had spent their early childhood. The stable is indeed one of the many variations of the tugurium. But it presents an important difference. The back of the hut is constituted by a solid wall on which like hunter's trophies the heads of ox and donkey have been fixed. The feature is well known in medieval illumination where economy of space was of the essence. But so are the two animals. They have been a permanent fixture of the nativity depiction from the beginning of the second or third century on. Their presence, however reduced, appeases the baby's fears. On the threshold of conscious humanness, he is close to the reassuring world of animals. 

Spectacle for the Many
Unknown Artist
Peru

This bas relief of a three-story house is of typical Andino provenance. Looking like a mixture of Stratford-on-Avon and fancy apartment house, it has two ornate balconies literally overflowing with spectators. Their rounded heads and merry hats are glued to the railing in an effort to see what is happening on the landing at the entrance of the house. There we discover an unusual nativity scene. The little figures surrounding the Christ child his parents and the wise men each hold a hand to their face in utter amazement of the spectacle which only the eyes of the heart can see. Here, Christ is still the object of a joyful spectacle. Thirty-three years later it will be a spectacle of derision.

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