Whether it’s a rosy-cheeked girl wrapped up warm, sun-bathed sheep at twilight or a snow-blanketed apple orchard, myriad pictures sum up the festive season, as 16 friends of COUNTRY LIFE tell Carla Passino

From gleaming presents to inebriating parties, discover five artists’ interpretations of the festive season

The Church of the Nativity still moves millions of people to tears and represents the power of hope. It is why, says the Revd Fergus Butler-Gallie, we flock to our local church at Christmas, no matter how far removed it may seem

Johannes Vermeer brightened his native Delft with luminous pictures of women caught in intimate moments, but the serenity of his work, of which he produced remarkably little, is at odds with a life mired in debt, as Carla Passino discovers

Andrew Graham-Dixon tells Carla Passino why he thinks we have read Vermeer wrong all along– and who the Girl with a Pearl Earring really is

Never work with animals and children, they say, but surely it isn’t a proper Nativity without them?