Private Life of a Masterpiece - Private Life of a Christmas Masterpiece - Census at Bethlehem

Art history series. This episode looks at Census at Bethlehem by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Arguably the painting that invented the snowy Christmas card scene, it depicts the arrival of Mary and Joseph at Bethlehem. It also portrays a Netherlands village in the grip of a cruel winter and under the hammer of a foreign army. The painting teems with human life as the best Bruegels do, but it also speaks to the 21st century in an extraordinary way.