Selected souvenir shops: Nativity scene sets, not the traditional ones
by berenices
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Close to the Christmas season, the Christian world is swamped with nativity scenes of all types and sizes, from the cheap cardboard version, plastic ones, wooden ones, to glass, ceramic or some other more expensive material like porcelain. Often they show the usual characters, Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus, the three kings, the shepherds, the lowly animals all in somber awe, looking very solemn, the set projecting a holy and religious atmosphere. On my trips around Portugal, I've seen a unique and very interesting twist to this otherwise heavy theme -- this time projecting an artistic comic humour, without any dour note in it. This was an approach started by one artist (don't remember the name) using clay, with figures very much evoking the rough hardy life of the main characters, rustic and rural. But the main thing is the distortion of the shapes, and the expression on their faces...
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