Western Culture: "The Arrival at Bethlehem"

Luc-Olivier Merson (1897)

It matters not that his Bethlehem with its unpaved street, its houses of plaster and thatch, looks more like Brittany than Palestine; the setting is only a background for a very human story that concerns three people-- helpless and desperate Mary, helpless and exasperated Joseph, and a hard-hearted woman. It is the eternal conflict of human need and human selfishness... . 

"Dr. Bailey" as quoted in Christ and the Fine Arts Revised and Enlarged Edition: An Anthology of Pictures, Poetry, Music and Stories Centering in the Life of Christ, Cynthia Pearl Maus. Harper & Row, Publishers, New York and Evanston. 1959 (p60).