Today I toured a gallery of Renaissance art at the National Gallery of Art with a group from my church. A member of my church is a docent at the Gallery, and she graciously agreed to give us a tour of some art depicting the Nativity as a nice Advent activity. Most of the time, she gives tours for school groups. She told a funny story about when a six year old child was viewing a particular piece of art, “The Adoration of the Shepherds” by Giorgione.
“The Adoration of the Shepherds” by Giorgione
Here is a zoomed-in view of the lower right portion of the painting.
“The Adoration of the Shepherds” by Giorgione
The story we were told by our wonderful guide is that a six year old, while viewing the painting, innocently asked “what is Joseph texting?”
The child is observant. It does look like he is texting. Then again, maybe he tweeting, “today Christ is born.” Just think how much faster the Wise Men would have gotten there if social media had been around. Mary and Joseph could have checked in on Facebook or FourSquare. Think of all the Instagram images! As they say, from the mouths of babes, in this instance, about babes.