Secular history says but little on the subject of St. Joseph, the reputed father of the Lord, and even the Evangelists, St. Matthew having proved the all-important fact that the husband of the Virgin was a lineal descendant of the royal house of Judah, content themselves with the barest references to him. Meagre as are these references, however, they are enough to give a vivid picture of one who forgot himself entirely in his devotion to duty and was content with the reward of watching over the growth of the Holy Child, holding it a sacred privilege to be in daily communion with Him.
Chosen by God Himself to veil from the eyes of mankind the mystery of the incarnation of Jesus, there can be no doubt that St. Joseph was a man of exceptional character; dignified, reserved, yet full of child-like faith in the prophecies concerning the coming of Christ, he was specially fitted for the task he had to perform, and when that task was done, he was ready to withdraw altogether into the background.
The silence of the Evangelists and secular historians has given full scope to the working of the imagination, and the tractions about St. Joseph are many and various. According to one, which ignores the Gospel narrative altogether, the chosen bridegroom of Mary knew of the lofty destiny for which she was reserved even before the betrothal, and certain artists, forgetting the fact that the bride-elect would have remained with her parents until after her marriage, have represented the Annunciation as taking place within sight and hearing of St. Joseph, who is listening in wondering awe to the words of Gabriel. He is even said to have gone with the Virgin on her memorable visit to St. Elizabeth in the hill country, and to have heard the significant greeting with which Mary was received by the future mother of the Baptist.
With regard to the age of St. Joseph when he married the Virgin there is a great difference of opinion, but there seems little doubt that it is a mistake to represent him, as some of the Early Italian masters have done, as an old man. He was, it is true, considerably older than Mary, but she was — or, at least, she is generally supposed to have been — still in early girlhood at the time of the Savior’s birth; and the probability is that St. Joseph was in the prime of life, with all his faculties at their best.
St. Joseph was, it is said, no mere village carpenter; there is, indeed, every reason to believe that he was a master builder, his work often taking him away from home. St. Hilary and St. Peter Chrysologus agree in believing him to have been a worker in iron, as well as in wood, and St. Justin goes so far as to assert that he and his adopted Son made ploughs and yokes for oxen. In any case, he probably had a house at Nazareth, with a workshop adjoining it, and in that workshop the little Jesus must often have played before his apprenticeship to the carpenter’s trade began. There were no such things as regular schools in those days, but every Jewish boy had to learn some craft by which he could earn his livelihood; it was a natural thing t W the son should follow the Other’s profession, and early writers dwell with enthusiasm on the simple life of the little family at Nazareth, when, the troubles resulting from Herod’s persecution over, they settled down in the quiet village.
The stories in the Apocryphal Gospels which give to St. Joseph a large family of sons by a former wife have never really commended themselves to the belief of Christians, and were but clumsy attempts to explain the mysterious references of the Bible narrative to the brethren of the Lord. It is more consistent with the reverence due to one brought into such intimate relations with the Savior to suppose him to have been entirely absorbed in his mission as protector of the Mother and Child, with no interests which could compete at all with his devotion to them. ‘Joseph,’ says St. Leonard de Port-Maurice, canonized by Pope Pius IX. in 1866, ‘was incomparably more than an angel to Mary, hedging her about with tender care’; and St. Bernard forcibly characterizes him as the ‘most faithful co-operator in the execution of the Lord’s deepest counsels upon earth.’ It is, therefore, as a protector and a co-operator, rather than as an originator, that St. Joseph figures in sacred pictures: now aiding the Virgin on her painful journey to Bethlehem, or in the anxious cares of her early motherhood; now attending her in her flight to Egypt, or looking on in loving admiration as she plays with the Infant Jesus and St. John. The noble face and figure of the carpenter, full of virile, strength and beauty, are as familiar to the student of art as those of Christ Himself, and St. Joseph has become the type of the human father and guardian of the weak.
Whether St. Joseph died before the commencement of his adopted Son’s ministry, or merely, with characteristic self-effacement, simply withdrew altogether into the background as the need for his help ceased, there is no evidence to prove. His last appearance in the Gospel narrative is at the scene in the Temple when Jesus was twelve years old; but tradition supplements what is actually known of his later life by a touching account of his last hours, with Mary and Jesus beside him, for which reason he is still invoked by Roman Catholics to insure an easy death. Where he was buried is quite unknown, and, strange to say, no church claims to own any of his actual relics, though both at that of S. Anastasia in Rome and the Monastery of S. Maria degli Angeli at Florence, a rod said to have belonged to him is shown. The former church also claims to own his mantle, and at Joinville-sur-Marne is preserved a sash which is supposed to have been woven by the Virgin herself as a gift to her husband.
Though not actually canonized, St. Joseph of Nazareth is venerated as a saint alike in the Eastern and Western Churches, the former celebrating his festival on the 20th of July, the latter on the 19th of March. He is the patron of numerous religious communities, notably of the all-important Order of the Carmelites, as reformed by St. Theresa; he is specially honored in Belgium, Spain, Italy, and in China by the Roman Catholic missionaries and their converts. Carpenters, wheelwrights, the boat-builders of Flanders, and all craftsmen who work in iron or wood, appeal to him for aid, and young children and students are supposed to be under his special protection.
The symbols by which St. Joseph may be identified in works of art are the saw, the hatchet, and the plane, which explain themselves, with the more mysterious flowering-rod in allusion to the beautiful legend related in the * Protevangelium,’ or Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, attributed to St. James the Less. According to this legend, embodied in so many pictures of the marriage of the Virgin, when the time came for the choosing of a husband for her, who was the most highly blessed among women, the High Priest ordered all the unmarried men of the tribe of Judah, including his own son, to appear before him in the Temple, each with a rod in his hand. These rods were laid upon the altar, and the Lord was entreated to give a sign by which His will might be made known. The prayer was answered, for the rod of Joseph budded even as had that of Aaron in the Tabernacle, and according to some authorities, a dove also appeared and hovered above the head of the fortunate suitor. The rest of the aspirants to the honor broke their rods and flung them away, but that of St. Joseph was preserved as a sacred relic. In certain representations the rod IS replaced by a lily in full flower, supposed to typify the perpetual virginity of St. Joseph, as well as his selection as bridegroom by the direct interposition of God.
The chief subjects in which St. Joseph of Nazareth appears, either as a principal or an accessory figure, are the Marriage or Betrothal of the Virgin, with the preliminaries of that Betrothal, such as the Competition of the suitors, the Return home of the Bride and Bridegroom, the Vision of St. Joseph, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Adoration of the Shepherds, the Adoration of the Magi, the second Dream of Joseph, the Flight into Egypt and the Repose by the way, the Return to Nazareth, the Home life there, the Dispute in the Temple, various Holy Families in which three or more figures are introduced, and the Death of Joseph.
In most of the pictures by the Early Italian painters of the Marriage or Betrothal of the Virgin the ceremony is treated rather as a civil contract than a religious rite, and it is often represented as taking place in the open air, just outside the Temple, or in a beautiful garden. Giotto, in the series of frescoes in the Arena Chapel, Padua, gives four scenes connected with the wedding: ‘The Bringing by St. Joseph and the other Suitors of the Rods to the High Priest’; the ‘Watching of the Rods in the Temple’; in which the aspirants for the hand of the Virgin kneel at the altar in expectation of a miracle ; the ‘Marriage Ceremony,’ which in this case takes place within the Temple itself ; and the ‘ Return of the Newly married Pair to Mary’s home at Nazareth,’ where, according to tradition, they dwelt for some time after the marriage. In the Marriage scene the Virgin is standing in a modest attitude of expectation, with her maidens about her, and St. Joseph, all unconscious that a disappointed suitor is about to strike him, proudly holds up his blossoming rod, on which a dove is resting, whilst the High Priest, a noble and dignified figure, is about to join the hands of the betrothed.
In Fra Angelico’s ‘Marriage of the Virgin’ in the Oratorio del Gesu, at Cortona, the grouping is somewhat similar to that in Giotto’s fresco, but the setting is a realistic rendering of a contemporary scene, the attendant musicians using the long trumpets then in vogue, and the wedding guests wearing Italian costumes. St. Joseph is a handsome man in the prime of life, and his bride a mir maiden of about sixteen. Ghirlandaio, in the fine fresco in the Church of S. Maria Novella, Florence, makes St. Joseph an elderly man, with sunken cheeky and introduces musicians playing on pipes and tabors. Luini, in bis frescoes in the Church of Saronno, near Milan, in spite of the somewhat faulty composition, has realized with considerable force the characters of the chief actors in the Marriage scene. His St. Joseph is an ideal man in the very prime of life, whose beautiful features well express his sense of the strange position in which he is placed with regard to his Bride. In the Brera Gallery, Milan, are two fine frescoes from the same hand, painted for the now suppressed convent of the Observants of S. Maria della Pace, representing the ‘Choosing of the Bridegroom’ and the ‘Return Home of the newly-wedded Pair,’ which are, perhaps, even more beautiful than the ‘Sposalizio’ of Saronno, so fully has the artist realized in the first the surprise of the humble-minded Joseph at his selection, and in the second bis reverent tenderness for his young bride.
In the celebrated ‘Sposalizio,’ so long attributed to Perugino, but assigned by certain modern critics to Lo Spagna, now in the Caen Museum, painted for the Altar of the Sacrament in the Cathedral of Perugia, where the betrothal-ring of the Virgin is said to be preserved, the ceremony of the betrothal is taking place in the Portico of the Temple, and the ring is being placed on Mary’s finger by a very noble and manly St. Joseph. In the )ret more famous picture of the same subject by Raphael, now in the Brera Gallery, Milan, painted for the Franciscan church at Citta di Castro, the same grouping is followed, a fact which has been made the text of many a dissertation on the influence of Perugino over his great pupil, whereas if, as seems very probable, the Caen Sposalizio is the work of Lo Spagna, it was most likely inspired by, if not actually copied, from, the Citta di Castello picture. Raphael was not twenty-one years old when he painted his Sposalizio, yet it is preeminently characteristic of his style, remarkable as it is for its simple dignity of grouping, its religious sentiment, and the originality with which true genius can stamp the most hackneyed subjects.’German artists, notably Albert Dtirer in his celebrated series of 120 engravings of the * Life of the Virgin,’ treat the subject of the Marriage very differently, making the Virgin a homely maiden, and St. Joseph an old man of somewhat feeble character. The disappointed suitors are generally omitted, and the introduction in the background of the ‘Ark of the Covenant is the only touch relieving the scene from the commonplace.
In pictures of the Annunciation, it is a rare thing for St. Joseph to appear, but he is occasionally seen listening in awestruck wonder to the message of the Archangel, and Tintoretto, in the large work in the Scuola di San Rocco, Venice, represents the carpenter as working quietly outside the house into which Gabriel and his attendant angels are entering.
The anxiety of St. Joseph when his first doubts were aroused as to his duty with regard to his affianced bride, and the Vision reassuring him, have only occasionally been chosen as subjects by artists. Luini, however, in a fresco preserved in the Brera Gallery, Mihm, has represented the husband-elect asleep in his carpenter’s shop, with an angel standing beside him pointing to Mary, who is busily sewing in a window above, and James Tissot, in one of the most pleasing of his pictures in the ‘Life of Jesus,’ has given a touching rendering of the bridegroom’s perplexity as he pauses in his work and watches his bride going down the village street. In sculpture the subject known as the ‘Repentance of Joseph’ sometimes occurs, as on one of the carved stalls of Amiens Cathedral and above a door in Notre Dame, Paris, in both of which St. Joseph kneels at the feet of the Virgin, and she is about to raise him from his humble position.
Of the many ‘Visitations’ in which St. Joseph is introduced escorting his bride to the home of her cousin in the hill country, few are more beautiful than that in the Appartamenti Borgia of the Vatican by Pinturicchio, who has supplemented the actual meeting of the two expectant mothers with a touching scene from the home life of St. Elizabeth, who is seated at her needlework with many reverent attendants waiting upon her. and St. Zacharias stands behind her reading an ornately-bound volume. Other fine renderings of the same theme, in which the husband of the Virgin appears, are that by Rubens, already referred to in connection with St. Elizabeth, and the small picture by Rembrandt called ‘Salutation’ in the Duke of Westminster’s collection.
Strange to say, the lonely journey to Bethlehem just before the birth of the Lord, with all its thrilling pathos, is but lightly touched upon in legend, and but rarely represented in art, though pictures of the crowded caravanserai, where there was no room for the anxious travelers, are numerous. An early Greek carving in ivory, however, said to date from the sixth century, which has often been reproduced, represents Mary seated on the ass, with St. Joseph walking beside and tenderly supporting her, and in some old Italian engravings the arrival at the inn, with the preparing of the stable for the Nativity, are amongst the scenes from the ‘Life of Christ.’
Neither Giotto in his frescoes at Padua nor Albert Diirer in his engravings of the Life of the Virgin included any episode of the journey to or arrival at Bethlehem, and it would appear that the interest of the actual Nativity altogether eclipsed that of the events immediately preceding it, for scarcely an artist of note of any nationality who treated religious subjects at all failed to represent it in one way or another.
When St. Joseph is introduced in the ‘Nativity’ he is generally represented opposite to the Virgin adoring the Holy Child, as in the many well-known pictures by Francia, Perugino, the Bellini, and other Italian painters, and in the various beautiful sculptured groups by Donatello and Luca della Robbi^ In other compositions of an ideal rather than a realistic character, as m that by Sandro Botticelli in the National Gallery, London, the Foster-Father is a mere looker-on at the worship by angels of the new-born Child, and in the world famous ‘Notte,’ or Holy Night, of Correggio in the Dresden Gallery, he is seen in the background hastening back on his ass from a hurried journey to fetch help for the mother in her trouble, an idea also suggested in a certain old German print, in which he is represented helping a woman over a stile near the manger. To quote a modern example, Burne Jones, in a beautiful pen-and-ink drawing in private possession, represents St. Joseph kneeling near the Holy Child stirring some food over a fire, whilst the Virgin shields the little one from the wind with her shawl.
It was not at first customary to introduce St. Joseph either in the ‘Adoration of the Shepherds’ or that of the Magi, for, owing to his great humility, he is said to have effaced himself as much as possible from the first. Later, however, the veneration in which his memory was held in the Roman Catholic Church led to his being represented as present, though generally in the background, in all the important incidents of the Virgin’s early motherhood. Sometimes he merely looks reverently on from behind the Mother and Child, but occasionally he acts as a kind of attendant, receiving the gifts or introducing the visitors one after the other.
In a charming drawing Raphael represents St. Joseph raising the coverlet concealing the Divine Child, for a shepherd to look at Him more closely; and Fra Angelico, in one of his many renderings of the adoration of the Kings,’ makes one of them grasp the hand of the Foster-Father, as if in congratulation. In the painting by Francia in the Dresden Gallery, St. Joseph, a figure full of reverent devotion, kneels beside the Virgin. In Sandro Botticelli’s fine picture of the same event, now in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, St. Joseph, whose face is remarkably beautiful, is of secondary importance to the three Medici who are introduced in the foreground. In Signorelli’s fine interpretation of the same theme, now in private possession at New Haven, U.S.A., the husband of the Virgin stands beside her, his hand almost touching her bent head, as he moves to speak to an approaching King. In Correggio’s ‘Visit of the Magi,’ in the Brera Gallery, Milan, St. Joseph is seated behind a pillar, holding one of the gifts on his knee; and in an Altarpiece by Jan Van Eyck in the Munich Gallery he stands in the foreground, gazing in evident astonishment at the richly-dressed Magi approaching to do homage to the new-born Child.
In all the representations of the ‘Flight into Egypt’ and the so-called ‘Repose’ by the way St. Joseph is, of course, always present as the unwearying and devoted protector of the Mother and Child. As a rule, the composition is limited to the three figures, but instances occur, as in Giotto’s series of frescoes at Padua, of the introduction of Mary Salome, and three young men, supposed to represent the sons of St. Joseph. Occasionally, too, an ox appears, as well as the ass on which the Virgin rides; for, according to an old tradition, the two animals which had shared the manger with the Holy Family accompanied them in their exile.
On a quaint old Greek enameled casket reproduced by Cahier in his ‘Caracteristiques des Saints’ a young man leads the ass on which the Virgin is seated, and St. Joseph walks behind them, with the Holy Child astride on his shoulder, whilst the King of Egypt, a crown upon his head, issues from his palace to receive the party, with his hands folded in devotion; and in certain mediaeval engravings images are represented falling down before the travelers, in allusion to the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘The idols of Egypt shall be moved at His presence.’
Among noteworthy representations of the ‘Flight into Egypt’ are the bas-reliefs in the Cathedrals of Benevento and Monreale, all of Greek origin and dating from the eleventh century; the fresco by Fra Angelico in the Florence Academy; that by Pinturicchio in S. Onofrio, Rome, with the Massacre of the Innocents taking place in the background; the painting by Gaudenzio Ferran in the Minorite Church at Varallo; and the picture by Hans Memlinc, forming one of the series of ‘ The Seven Joys of the Virgin,’ in the Munich Gallery, in which a wheat field, with men reaping, is introduced, in allusion to the miracle said to have been performed by the Holy Child, the seed sown in the morning having borne fruit in the evening. Annibale Caracci, Giordano, and others, represented the Holy Family embarking in a boat to cross a river, the Virgin handing the Child to St. Joseph from the bank; and yet others introduced a robber, in allusion to the legend relating that the penitent thief of the Crucifixion rescued the travelers from is evil comrades, and was even then promised the forgiveness accorded later.
The ‘Repose in Egypt’ was also long a favorite subject with artists, and included not only, as the name implies, a rest by the way, but many significant incidents, related in the various legends which have grown up about the infancy of the Savior, such as the miraculous bowing down of a palm-tree at the command of the Infant Christ, to shelter His mother, and the issuing forth from a rock of water, for the use of the travelers. In Correggio’s celebrated picture in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, St. Joseph is gathering dates from whilst in the so-called ‘Madonna della Scodella,’ in the Parma Gallery, Florence. St Joseph is gathering dates from the palm-tree, and St. Francis kneels in adoration of the Holy Child at the feet of the Virgin; whilst in the so-called ‘ Madonna della Scodella,’ in the Parma Gallery, from the same hand, Mary is dipping a bowl in the stream. Titian, in one of his ‘Reposes,’ introduces two angels offering fruits to the Virgin and Child, whilst St. Joseph looks on, leaning on his staff; and in other pictures by Italian masters angels minister to the needs of the party, erecting a tent by night, watching over the sleep of the Holy Family, etc.
In the Uffizi Gallery is a beautiful little ‘Repose in Egypt’ by a comparatively unknown master, Lucio Massari, in which the Child Christ is handing the linen the Virgin has washed in the miraculous stream to St. Joseph, who hangs it on a line to dry. German artists were fond of introducing similar domestic incidents. Albert Durer, in his ‘Life of the Virgin,’ has a ‘Repose’ in which the Virgin is spinning beside the cradle of her Child, who is watched by two angels; whilst St. Joseph is at work, a number of child angels picking up and playing with the chips he lets fall as he planes a plank of wood. Lucas Cranach hints at the Massacre of the Innocents, which led to the exile in Egypt, by introducing some cherubs robbing a nest and killing the young in a tree, on the trunk of which St. Joseph stan^, looking down on his wife and the Holy Child, who are surrounded by little winged angels, dancing in an abandonment of glee ; and in another ‘ Repose ’ the same artist makes the angels wash the linen whilst the Virgin and Child are resting, and St. Joseph approaches them, cap in hand, leading the ass. Rembrandt gives to the scene of the ‘Repose’ a weird and unearthly beauty, but adds no supernatural accessories; Teniers represents the family crossing a bridge by moonlight; Van Dyck introduces a guard 01 angels, some dancing round the sleeping travelers, and others looking down upon them from the sky, and Holman Hunt has given a very realistic interpretation of the hurried journey, the whole scene full of the solemn beauty of an Oriental night, the only hint of the supernatural being the introduction of the cherubs representing the spirits of the Holy Innocents.
To make anything like a representative selection from the countless ‘Holy Families’ in which St. Joseph appears is extremely difficult, although, as was the case with the subjects of the Adorations of the Shepherds and of the Magi, he was not at first introduced. What may perhaps be called the reversion of feeling in his favor of the fourteenth century, however, resulted in the production of innumerable beautiful frescoes, oil paintings, and sculptures of the Mother and Child with St. Joseph standing by them, looking on reverently, or, more rarely, at work in the background. Luini, Signorelli, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Titian, the Caracci, and, indeed, pretty well every Italian master of note from the early fifteenth to the seventeenth century, interpreted the character of St. Joseph in their ‘Holy Families’ according to their own idiosyncrasies, as did also Murillo, Rembrandt, and the great Flemish painters. Sometimes St. Joseph shares the honor of being present with St. Zacharias, the father of the Baptist, or with the parents of the Virgin; sometimes, again, he is but one in a group of attendant saints; but in every case he is treated as of special importance in the entourage of the Virgin.
In pictures of the ‘Return from Egypt’ the Child Christ is sometimes represented as three or four years old, and sometimes as about seven. He trots beside His parents, now carrying a basket of tools, now clinging to their hands; or He is perched proudly on His Foster-Father’s shoulders — a rosy, healthy Child, full of the mere joy of living, whose relations with St. Joseph were of the most loving and intimate description.
Even in mediaeval times the home-life at Nazareth appealed forcibly to popular imagination, and some of the houses in Bruges and other old-world cities of the Continent still retain quaint carvings of the carpenter’s shop, with Jesus working with His father. In a series of rare Dutch engravings called ‘Jesu Christi dei Domini Salvatoris nostri Infantia’ many homely scenes from the childhood of the Lord are represented with the vivid realism characteristic of the Netherlands, yet full of true religious feeling. In one of these fine prints St. Joseph is at work, with St. Joachim standing near him, and the Virgin is busy over some linen, with her mother looking on, whilst the little Jesus is blowing soap-bubbles with the aid of two angels. In another the Virgin is busy over the fire, St. Joseph is chopping wood, and Jesus is gathering up the chips, the angels still in attendance. In others the Child, now old enough to be of use, is aiding St. Joseph to roof a house, to fence in a garden, and to build a boat, the angels aiding Him with their counsel.
The same motifs very differently interpreted, has been chosen as the subject of some of the most celebrated pictures of modern times, notably ‘The Shadow of Death’ by Holman Hunt, in which, however, St. Joseph does not take a prominent part; and Millais’ ‘Child Jesus in the Workshop,’ illustrating the words of the Prophet Zechariah: ‘What are these wounds in Thine hands ?’ in which the Foster-Father, a noble, dignified figure, bends down to look at a wound on the hand of the little Jesus, whilst Mary kneels beside Him and St. John the Baptist is bringing water in a bowl.
The last episode in the life of Christ in which St. Joseph figures is the so-called ‘Dispute in the Temple,’ when Jesus put the Jewish doctors to shame. It formed the subject of one of the very earliest Christian pictures, a rough drawing in the Catacombs, in which the Holy Child stands between His parents, with arms outstretched, and seems to be saying, ‘Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” The ‘Dispute’ has been very finely rendered by many of the great Italian masters. It is included in Giotto’s ‘Lite of the Virgin’ in the Arena Chapel, Padua; in Luini’s frescoes in the Church of Saronno, near Milan; and in those by Pinturicchio in the Capella del Sacramento in the Cathedral of Spello. Luini’s ‘Dispute in the Temple’ is considered one of his best works, the figure of St. Joseph being especially fine; whilst in Pinturicchio’s rendering of the same theme there is something very touching in the way in which the husband seems to be allaying the fears of his wife, who holds his girdle in one hand, and is evidently listening eagerly to his words.
The treatment of the ‘Dispute’ which has become customary in modem times differs essentially from that alike of the Italian and German masters of the past. In the most celebrated example, that by Holman Hunt, for instance, the parents have nothing about them to distinguish them from their contemporary Jews; nor is there anything divine about the Child Jesus. For all that, however, the picture is a wonderful historical realization of the scene as it may possibly have taken place, for the doctors are all carefully-selected types, and the costumes are such as were worn during the lifetime of our Lord.
During the last few centuries, the cult of St. Joseph, which received the sanction of the Pope in the fifteenth century, when Sextus IV. instituted the Festival of the Husband of the Virgin, has increased with remarkable rapidity, and there is now scarcely a church on the Continent without at least one representation of him. On account of the popular belief referred to above, that the Virgin and Jesus were present at his death-bed, the closing scene of his life has become a very favorite subject, and occurs again and again in the convents of which he is the patron, as w^ as in mortuary chapels.
Adapted from: The Saints in Christian Art: The Evangelists, Apostles, and Other Early Saints, By Mrs. Arthur Bell, (London: George Bell & Sons, 1901).