Spend long hours with him!

To paint (here with dry pastel) someone like Saint Joseph, is to spend long hours with him, and ask him to forgive us for necessarily imagining him far from the reality that we will discover up above! But in contemplating Saint Joseph, we contemplate Jesus, we reread the Bible, we expose ourselves to beauty… it is also as relaxing as it is comforting.  Sometimes I wish for a contest of portraits of Saint Joseph as an antidote to the sad and violent images.  Here, Joseph and the child smile, they smile at us, as if to tell us again "Have faith"!  
On this image, Saint Joseph wears a multi-coloured tunic in reference to the patriarch Joseph (the origin of "Ite ad Joseph"), he is red headed in reference to King David, his eyes of are a lesser blue than those of Jesus, they have a tint of green for hope, if you zoom in… Jesus resembles him in his traits (that he can also get from the lineage of King David through Mary), but his eyes of a greater blue remind us that He comes from Above.  Jesus, realization of all of our prayers, wears a prayer shawl, white and blue, like those that the Jews have since immemorial… Mary must have woven him one, she who is never far!  And Joseph anticipates Jesus, adult: I was asked if the adult was Jesus with a child in his arms… somewhere, yes also: Joseph, the Just, anticipates Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

Anne Céline

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