Curious Christian

You’re probably used to nativity scenes where Mary wears blue and sits in a tidy European stable. Frank Wesley doesn’t do that.

In his Nativity, Mary is dressed in an Indian red. She sits on the earth, curved around her child in a posture that feels intimate and warm. Behind her lies a white cow. Not standing as background detail, but resting close, sheltering the mother and her son. In India, a cow is never just an animal off to the side. It symbolises sustenanceand even sacred presence. Wesley doesn’t make a fuss about it. He simply places it there.

Frank Wesley was one of the pioneers of modern Indian Christian art, part of a movement that refused to let biblical faith be painted only in European styles and colours. He believed the gospel could be fully at home in Indian soil.