St. Joseph and the Infant Christ

As we near Christmas, and we hear the lovely stories of Jesus's birth and his young mother Mary, I always feel that we keep his earthly father, Joseph, a little on the side-lines.

I am re-posting a segment I did on St. Joseph, and on the artists who painted him. These are purely subjective choices. I don't know if the paintings are masterpieces, or if some of the painters are even recognized in the roster of the Western canon. But, in many of the paintings, I found the gentleness with which Joseph interacted with his young infant touching.

Here is the website where I found most of these images.

[I've removed some works where Christ is already a young man in my original blog post. To view the complete post, you can go here.]

---

Jesus's Earthly Father
Saturday, November 27, 2010

Left: St. Joseph. By Rudolph Blattler, Switzerland, 1899
Right: St. Joseph with the Christ Child.
By Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, Italy, 1600s

Left: St. Joseph and Child. By Enrico Reffo, Italy, 1800s
Right: Saint Joseph and Jesus. By Enrico Manfrini, Italy, 2000

Left: St. Joseph, The Holy Child.
By Bartolome Esteban Murillo, Spain, 1600s
Right: Holding Heaven. By Ron DiCianni, USA, 2004

Left: Saint Joseph with Child. By Brother Simeon, USA, 1900s
Right:Joseph with Infant Christ. By Bartolome Esteban Murillo,
Spain, 1655-56

The Joseph in Enrico Reffo's painting appears the oldest. But, perhaps that is true to the reality. Joseph was quite likely a mature man when he married Mary, who was half his age. Perhaps that is where his gentleness came from, entrusted as he was with a baby in his mature years. But, I don't think God would have given Jesus a harsh father. Joseph's gentleness is part of the beautiful design.