Christ Child (sculpture)

Christ Child, also known as In the Beginning or the Millennium Sculpture, is an outdoor sculpture by Michael "Mike" Chapman, located under the portico of St Martins-in-the-Fields at Trafalgar Square in London, United Kingdom. The opening text from the Gospel of John is inscribed around the sculpture: "In the beginning was the word and the word became flesh and lived among us". Chapman has said of the sculpture: "For the millennium I was commissioned to produce a sculpture to be placed in Trafalgar square, during Christmas prior to the celebrations. It seemed to me that a tiny life-size baby carved from stone in such an enormous environment would be the best way to remind us all of just whose birthday we were celebrating. In a 4.5 tonne block of Portland stone, this work can be found at the entrance to the church." It has been called "strikingly modern".

Detail

Detail

References

External links

Media related to In the Beginning (sculpture) at Wikimedia Commons

Christ Child

The Christ Child, also known as Divine Infant, Baby Jesus, Infant Jesus, Child Jesus, the Holy Child, and Santo Niño, refers to Jesus Christ from his Nativity to age 12. Upon reaching 13 years-old he was considered to be an adult in accordance with the Jewish custom of his time. The canonical Gospels lack any narration of the years between Jesus' infancy and the Finding in the Temple when he was twelve.

Liturgical feast days

Liturgical feasts relating to Christ's Infancy and the Christ Child include:

Depictions in art

The oldest image of the Child Jesus in existence dates back to the wall fresco in the Catacomb of Priscilla, belonging to a Roman noblewoman martyred for sheltering the cult of early Christians during imperial persecutions. From about the third or fourth century onwards, the child Jesus is frequently shown in paintings, and sculpture. Commonly these are Nativity scenes showing the birth of Jesus, with his mother, Mary, and his foster father Joseph.