-
Discover Magnificat
All you need to know about Magnificat
-
Subscribe to Magnificat
Subscribe, renew or offer a subscription
It Is up to Us to Witness to It
Pierre-Marie Dumont
Saint Joseph the Worker (1964)
Pietro Annigoni (1910–1988)
This striking painting by Pietro Annigoni illustrates the dignity of the worker and the reasons for Saint Joseph’s patronage of work. Commissioned in 1961 and completed a few years later, it stands out as a modern work in Florence’s Basilica of San Lorenzo, a Renaissance gem of a church. Annigoni vividly presents Saint Joseph at work in his shop with Jesus.
The joy of work and the family
One of the most striking elements is the strong diagonal on the left. It brings our attention from the plank of wood in the foreground to the sky at the top centre. There we notice a burst of golden light, radiating up, out, across, and down in the form of a cross. It disappears into the limitless sky above and cascades down into the carpenter’s shop, where Joseph and the young Jesus are standing behind a work -table, forming a pleasing pyramidal composition.
Joseph, tall and sturdy, is wearing a deep blue robe, a workman’s apron, and a traditional skull cap. A few grey hairs are visible by his temple and in his beard. A tool or two hang on his belt; others can be seen on and around the table. At this moment he is paying close attention to his foster son Jesus, turning slightly towards him. In delightfully boyish manner, the blond-headed Jesus has climbed up to lean over the top of the table. He is eager to help his father and to learn from him. Joseph holds his hand over the adorable Child’s head in a poignant gesture of both protection and awe. With his serious, concerned, yet gentle expression, he lovingly looks at his son. Another shaft of light from an unseen source seems to encapsulate their close relationship, as the warm light falls across Joseph’s chest and the head and shoulders of Jesus.
The bright red robe of Jesus stands out from the surrounding colours. His face partly in shadow, he bends his head down in concentration. His right hand, placed on the beam, imitates his father’s right hand. In his left hand, he grasps three nails—ordinary items in a carpenter’s shop, here infused with deep meaning. Does the young Jesus already grasp the significance of nails? Does he know that nails will pierce his hands and feet for the salvation of the world? The reddish stain on the plank of wood by his feet seems to foretell spilled blood.
As he looks towards Jesus, Joseph may also be pondering his own work and mission: to protect and provide for this Child conceived through the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:20). His foster son, who is the hidden King of the Universe, looked up to his father and allowed himself to be taught a trade and to become known as the carpenter’s son (Mt 13:55). From Joseph, Jesus learned how to work with wood: how to use a hammer, a saw, and measuring instruments to craft tables, chairs, and cabinets. It is Saint Joseph who gave these human skills to Jesus; Jesus then worked as a carpenter for much of his earthly life (Mk 6:3).
Heart of the matter
In the Letter to the Colossians, in one of the optional readings for the Memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker, Saint Paul reminds us: Whatever you do, do from the heart, as for the Lord and not for others (3:23). Saint Joseph quite literally did everything for the Lord! And he modelled doing it from the heart. Annigoni emphasises this by making the centre of the painting, left to right and top to bottom, Saint Joseph’s heart.
Working from the heart involves keeping the right focus and perspective. The dignity of work does not depend on perfection of form or successful results. Annigoni seems to make just that point by showing the precariousness of the setting: Uncertainty is all around. Strange, blood-red clouds hover overhead; indistinct buildings and bushes appear haphazardly in the background. The ramshackle roof and supporting beams of the workshop barely provide shelter from the elements or from outside danger.
It is in these circumstances that Joseph, close to Jesus, goes on with his daily tasks and responsibilities. He has his eyes on the one thing necessary (Lk 10:42). He does not turn to external things for his confidence or sense of security. He is not overcome by the brokenness and violence of the world. He does what is right with his humble, tender, and valiant heart. His heart is attuned to the presence of the Lord, right there with him in the workshop.
Power of the Presence
It is the presence of the Lord which elevates this scene. As the golden light in the form of a cross fills the space, we affirm that it is the power of the cross in the light of the Resurrection which animates our world. The workaday world is transformed: in the toil, chores, and burdens of our lives, we find fulfilment and even joy when we turn our minds and hearts, like Saint Joseph, to Christ who is with us. Christ, who entered this world, who chose to hide his divine majesty as a tradesman, is the basis of the dignity of all workers.
As the Universal Church honours Saint Joseph under the title Worker on 1 May, let us aim to emulate his heart in our own labours of every kind. Let us thank the Lord for the gift of work and offer it all to him.
Jennifer Healy
Has taught art history for Franciscan University and works for the USCCB’s Office for Aid to Central and Eastern Europe.
Saint Joseph the Worker (1964), Pietro Annigoni (1910–1988), Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence, Italy. © Photo Scala, Florence, Dist. GP-Rmn / image Scala.
(Read More)
Francisco Camilo (1615–1673) is one of the brilliant stars in the constellation of artists that lit up the firmament of the Spanish Golden Age (c. 1550–1680). He painted this Ascension in 1651. The composition’s dynamism, the dramatic interplay of darkness and light, the expressions on the faces, and the movement of the draperies make it one of the masterpieces of the Baroque style, worthy of the works by Velázquez and d’Alonzo Cano, painters who were active in Madrid at the same time as Camilo, and sometimes on the same worksites.
Saint John in the foreground—wearing the red cloak of divine love, with his arms outstretched and his head turned toward heaven—draws a diagonal line which his glance continues. Along that diagonal we are invited to enter into the picture so as to embrace, like the disciple whom Jesus loved, the whole drama of it: joy over the saving mission that has been accomplished, sadness at the departure of the Beloved, hope in awaiting the promised Spirit. Let us observe how these emotions are conveyed by the expressions of each of the disciples, among whom we see Mary the Mother of the Lord and Mary Magdalene.
But what is the source of this light that bathes the picture? It might seem that it descends from the heavens toward which the Lord ascends. But it seems just as likely that it emanates from Christ himself. Did the artist perhaps mean to show that the Light from Light, after coming into the world, now returns to the Light that begot him?
And so, surrounded by a storm cloud which has parted in the form of a mandorla [almond-shaped halo], Jesus the Christ ascends into heaven. He wears a “gaudete” rose-colored tunic which symbolises his joy over returning to the Father’s bosom, and a sky-blue mantle. In a virtuosic rendering of the draperies, his clothing floats as if it were no longer subject to gravity. With open arms, the Lord prepares to fall into the Father’s arms, inasmuch as he is his dearly beloved Son, through whom his benevolent will for the human race has been accomplished. But also, and even more, he prepares to nestle in the Father’s arms, evoking the prodigal son, since from now on he for ever embodies saved humanity in God’s bosom. The stigmata displayed by his open hands testify to it.
At the bottom centre of the picture, the painter depicted the rock that forms the summit of the central hill of the Mount of Olives, where the Ascension took place. On this rock he depicted, as though sculpted in the stone, the imprints of the Lord’s two feet. In reality, at the summit of this hillock, at an altitude of 2,683 feet, tradition has seen in the rock an imprint not of both feet of the Lord but of his right foot only, through which his last contact with earth occurred. Between 388 and 392 a.d., at the instigation of Saint Helen, the mother of the emperor Constantine, a patrician noblewoman, had a chapel built which was centred on the rock with the imprint. The architecture had the form of a rotunda and kept the roof overhanging the rock open to the sky, so that pilgrims could imagine the scene of the Ascension. Eight centuries later, in 1198, the mosque that we see today was built on this site. Part of the chapel was preserved, however, with its rock which can still be venerated there.
This imprint is a sign that, according to his promise, the Lord remains present in our lives after his ascension. Certainly, this presence is hidden but nonetheless real in its different sacramental forms, preeminently in the Blessed Sacrament, but also in the sign of his presence that we are personally called to be for each other, a sign that is up to us to make manifest by loving one another as the Lord loved us.
Pierre-Marie Dumont
The Ascension of Christ (1651), Francisco Camilo (1615–1673), Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. © akg-images.
(Read More)