The collaboration between Father Alessio Fucile, an art expert, and the Shalom blog continues. Father Alessio will guide us in exploring the most important moments of the liturgical year through beautiful works of art that, besides inspiring wonder at their splendor, can help us better understand Sacred Scripture and the message of Jesus.
Today, Father Alessio presents “Saint Joseph the Carpenter” by Georges de La Tour, which can be admired at the Louvre Museum in France, on the occasion of the feast of Saint Joseph, which we celebrate tomorrow.
Welcome back. Let me introduce you to “Saint Joseph the Carpenter” by Georges de La Tour, one of the most important French Caravaggist painters, known especially for his nocturnal scenes. He led a turbulent life, and the strong contrasts between light and shadow in his works express his complex personality well. The painting was created around 1642 and is housed at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.
The work
In the work you see, the child Jesus holds a candle for Joseph as he works in the workshop. The carpenter’s tools lie on the floor. All around there is only darkness, with an exceptional rendering of the shadows stretching across the surfaces. The candle symbolizes the light that Jesus brings to humanity, and the most illuminated part is precisely his face, which seems almost to shine through his cheeks. During his public life, he will say: “I am the light of the world; whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Symbolism and interpretation
The candle is also a symbol of the faith that makes it possible to see in the darkness of doubt. At first glance, the image seems to show a craftsman’s son who, helping his father, is beginning to learn the trade. In this case, however, the son is himself the light of the world, wisdom in person, while the father, bent over his work, seems to bow before the child and is illuminated by him. Indeed, his forehead is illuminated because he has trusted in God, knowing well that reality, even when difficult, is the only place where happiness can be experienced. On Joseph’s lips there is no trace of: “Why is this happening?” Not because this question never crossed his heart, but because when faced with the serious things in life, what matters is how to deal with them, even more than why they happened. Often, you would like to understand and then trust, but sometimes in life you must trust first in order to understand later.
The artist depicts Joseph with his sleeves rolled up; indeed, he will do everything in his power to defend the child and his mother. He is drilling a wooden beam with a gimlet, a carpenter’s tool, alluding to the holes for the nails that will fasten Jesus’ hands and feet to the cross. Joseph, with the wrinkles of age and toil, in this intimate moment of silence, senses what will happen to this extraordinary child standing before him.
Years later, when Jesus would return to teach in the synagogue of Nazareth, people would ask: «Where did this man get such wisdom and these miracles? Is he not the carpenter’s son?» (cf. Mt 13:55-56; Mk 6:3). By quoting the people’s questions in interrogative form, the evangelist wants to suggest that Jesus’ wisdom comes not from the carpenter Joseph, but from God. Georges de La Tour conveys the same idea by making Jesus’ face the image’s main source of light and playing with the translucent effect of his left hand: that delicate hand, which seems to be blessing and which will be nailed to the cross, becomes a further sign, reminding us that the ultimate illumination will in fact be the death voluntarily accepted by Jesus. From that moment on, the light will radiate across history and reach the darkness within every person in the world.
Saint Joseph, the man of silence
I’ll leave you with a thought about this silent man, from whom you can learn a great deal: «Joseph, man who trusts, grant me the ability to trust, especially when things seem dark and confusing. Teach me that when trust is lacking, my reasoning becomes dead ends that run up against despair. Help me make peace with my story, which, even though it is not as I imagined it, is full of all the meaning I was searching for. Unlock the hearts of those who no longer trust, and grant them dreams that overturn their perspectives. Because anyone who continues to look at a wall with trust already has the beginnings of an escape». Thank you for your attention, and until next time.
