Merry Christmas from the Baroque Art Accessibility Consortium! The featured painting today is The Nativity (c.1655) Bartolomé Estebán Murillo. This painting is especially unique because it was painted on obsidian. As everyone (who plays Minecraft) knows, obsidian is formed by rapidly cooling lava. It is thought that this piece of obsidian was created by an Aztec craftsman. Murillo got his hands on it and expertly used the glass’s natural vertical lines to echo heavenly rays streaming down onto the Holy Family.