Art lovers can spot Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s trademark Madonnas from across a room. The Spanish painter’s ethereal, raven-haired, porcelain-skinned portrayals of the Virgin Mary tenderly embracing her son or hovering on heavenly clouds grace museums across the world. Yet for every innovative image of the Mother of God that the Baroque artist painted, he produced an equally pioneering depiction of fatherhood.
To illustrate paternal virtue, Murillo used scriptural examples, and his greatest source of inspiration was St. Joseph, husband of Mary and foster father of Jesus Christ. More subdued in color and gesture than his radiant Madonnas, Murillo’s St. Joseph paintings extol the nuanced qualities that typify great fathers.
St. Joseph took a long time to find his place in the history of art. Without a single spoken word recorded in the Bible, he remained absent in early Christian frescos and carvings, eventually appearing as a worried old man crouched in the corner of Nativity scenes.
By the Renaissance era, his iconographic repertoire had expanded to include his marriage to the Virgin Mary, proposing the saint as a model husband. In the wake of the Protestant Reformation, St. Joseph finally took center stage as a subject worthy of his own altarpiece, not as the factotum of the Holy Family but as an engaged, protective, loving father.
Murillo’s St. Joseph as the Good Father
Murillo explored different paternal qualities—vigilance, devotion, playfulness, loyalty, and forgiveness—in each of his numerous paintings of St. Joseph. His striking 1665 altarpiece in Seville shows a larger-than-life Joseph towering over the viewer, standing next to the luminous Christ Child.Typical of his style, Murillo arranged a few classical architectural fragments on one side, while leaving the rest of the space uncluttered to focus solely on the two figures. Jesus, perched on the ruins of an ancient altar, nestles close to Joseph while gazing serenely at the viewer, confident in his father’s protection. The mauve color of his robe and soft skin emphasize his humanity and vulnerability. Joseph shields the child with his body, looking warily in the distance, seemingly ready to whisk his son away at the first sign of danger. In the Bible, Joseph’s prompt reactions saved the infant Jesus by escaping the murderous rage of King Herod.
At the same time, Joseph appears awed by the fact that this adorable infant is also the Messiah. Jesus places a flowering branch in Joseph’s hand, an allusion to the divine selection of this man to be the husband of Mary and the guardian of Christ. The wispy brushstrokes give the impression of spontaneous movement, as if this were a candid snapshot where Joseph, caught unawares, reveals the depth and intensity of his fatherly love.
In a spartan workshop, St. Joseph leaves his carpentry tasks for a moment to play with his son. Jesus, whose only indication of his exalted status is the blue and gold band around his waist and the intensified light on his face, teases a lapdog with a bird. A smile seems to play around Joseph’s lips as he points toward the patient pet, enjoying this quiet domestic moment.
Mary also pauses at her spinning to take in the scene, but as she looks at the finch in Jesus’s hand, symbol of his future passion, framed against the crossed wooden bars of her spindle, her mind seems to stray to more somber thoughts.
Other Fathers
Murillo’s artistic studies of fatherhood were not limited to St Joseph. In the wake of the Spanish plague of 1649, Murillo painted six large canvases recounting the story of the Prodigal Son. This parable tells of a young man who demanded his inheritance while his father was still alive, only to squander it on raucous living. Reduced to poverty, shame, and starvation, he returned home hoping to join his father’s servants.Murillo’s images, 400 years later, seem tailor-made for a modern Father’s Day. They are emblems of gratitude toward the men who faithfully support, serve, protect, and love their families no matter how difficult the circumstances.