Images of St Joseph are ubiquitous in the modern Catholic devotional
landscape with his statues and figurines standing sentinel in every
church and creche, but this was not always the case. The husband of Mary
and foster father of Jesus spent the first centuries of Christian art as
a great absentee, unaccounted for in visual representations of Christ's
birth and infancy.
The Silent Knight explores and chronicles the remarkable rise of
Joseph's iconography through masterpieces by some of history's greatest
artists. The first depictions of Joseph appeared in the fifth century,
gradually evolving as the Church grew, accompanying the faithful through
the vicissitudes of ecclesiastical history. Josephine imagery adapted at
various times to provide inspirational role models for fathers,
husbands, workers, the moribund, and even the pope, depending on the
circumstances, leading to a striking variety of depictions in the
history of art.
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