The Municipal Museum and the Nahim Isaías Museum take up the tradition of displaying their births to the delight of the public.
The divine and glorious character of Christmas is represented by the setting up of nativity scenes, or mangers, in Christian homes. Many families follow a common unspoken rule: do not place the Baby Jesus figurine until midnight on December 24. Hence, the materials, the compositions, the scenes, even the dimensions of their nativity scenes are as varied as they are ingenious.
And if you haven’t installed yours yet or would like to admire the creativity of other equally charming and devoted nativity scenes, some exhibits have been prepared that seek to inspire and move you at the same time.
At Nahim Isaiah Museum The nativity scenes that this institution treasures are exhibited, under the sample called Births since the Colony. It comprises a wide range that goes from pieces considered patrimonial, belonging to the Reserve of Colonial and Republican Art from the Quito School, to the popular Ecuador and other countries, with different representations, formats and resources used for its preparation.
The exhibition includes paintings of the Sagrada Familia, heritage sculptures with representations of characters and animals dating from the 17th century, incarnated and polychrome wood carvings. In a statement from the entity, the museum’s management highlights that this exhibition, “beyond its artistic value, denotes the validity of traditions that travel through time and continue to be present to this day.”
The creations will be located in the temporary room on the first floor of the museum until January 7, 2022. Admission to the public is free, Monday through Friday, from 10:00 to 17:00; and on Saturdays, from 10:00 to 16:00.
For his part, Municipal Museum of Guayaquil opened the exhibition Cribs, with births from various places in Latin America that represent different ethnic groups around the world. That is why figures with Asian, African, European and American features will be seen.
There are pieces made with corn husks, in traditional ceramics, porcelain, wood, silver, acrylics, metals and more. These births belonged to father Hugo Vásquez and they became part of the museum’s collection after his death in 2008. The exhibition will be open to the public until January 6, from 10:00 to 17:30, in the Museum’s Multipurpose Room.
The tradition of nativity scenes arises from 1223, when San Francisco de Asis celebrated the birth of Jesus for the first time in a cave in Greccio (Italy), popularizing this practice over the centuries. With the arrival of Christianity in America, and with it the establishment of Christmas celebrations, artistic expressions materialized through painting and sculpture proliferated and also used as part of a form of evangelization.
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