Art Throb #26: 'Nature Forging a Baby', British Library, Harley 4425, f. 140, 15th Century

Artist unknown, Nature Forging a Baby,
British Library, Harley 4425, f. 140, 15th Century

What to make of this?

Here we have nature – not God, not a man – but nature, personified in the form of a woman. Very specifically, she – 'mother' nature? – is 'forging' a human baby. Not 'creating' or 'making', but 'forging'. Chiselling and hammering – you can hear the clang of metal on metal in this baby factory – she is a very beautiful cover girl: tall, blonde, beautiful. Presumably her babies will grow to be like her.

Nature is sculpting, using human tools, and it's hard not to be disturbed. She's creating a baby with her own hands, but it's an act that also appears destructive. Whether the baby has a spirit yet or not, it looks like Nature could be killing him or her: the baby's soft flesh is lying on (presumably hot) metal, and Nature is about to bash it with a hammer/ chisel. This image, frozen in time, is half a second away from baby carnage – blood, guts and body parts sprayed all over the room. There's that look on Nature's face, too: determined, half-demented and demonic, while in the corner on the left there's a heap of soulless baby body parts (is that a baby brain on the floor behind them? It is somewhat large). Are they miscarriages or abortions? Or are they waiting to be forged into complete babies?

In any case, Nature looks very busy. Creating the population of the world is no small order and she is unsentimental about it, nonplussed by the responsibility. In addition, she creates her babies asexually. There is no fertilization, conception, gestation or birth. The babies are curiously sexless too – no genitalia, male or female. In fact, there is a distinct absence of masculinity in this scene. In the 15th Century art was usually produced by men, but here a woman is depicted as being in control of her purpose and destiny, both personal and professional. Is this painting also a statement about art? The violence and pain involved in creation, both in our reasons for it – to preserve the species, and to preserve ourselves, our memory – and in its execution. Artists may well tell you that their endeavours are their babies. Art is often felt to be a substitute or surrogate child.

God is present in this painting implicitly. The baby is spread-eagled (a phoenix forged elementally from flame) in a Christ-like pose. Nature wears the colours of the Virgin Mary, which are rendered in ridiculously expensive lapis lazuli blue and crimson red. The implication also is that we – the human species – are below nature, which is below God. God provides the original material for Nature's work, and Nature sees to our reproduction, so our species does not die out.

To our modern eyes this painting is defamiliarising, shocking and creepy. Without a title it would be highly disturbing. But hammers are associated with creation as well as destruction, and part of the joy of art is always looking closely. This complex work of art contains so much more than its superficial surface content and is obviously best appreciated in context. Yet the context stretches to the present moment. The idea of a baby 'forge' or ''factory' obviously has connotations associated with modern artificial baby-making methods.

We are part of this lineage, its heritage. We are looking at ourselves.