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Raphael - VM - James Romaine
Raphael: Holy Family with a Palm Tree
Sacred Refreshment
by James Romaine
This painting by Raffaello Sanzio, who is more popularly known as Raphael, depicts Jesus Christ, his mother Mary, and her husband Joseph as they pause along their journey to Egypt.
Representations of the Rest on the Flight to Egypt can be found across the history of Christian art. Having been warned that King Herod wanted to kill the child, Joseph is taking Mary and Christ to the safety of exile. Along their way from Bethlehem to Egypt, they stop for a moment of refreshment.
Raphael pictures the mother of God sitting on a stone structure. If this is an oasis along the road to Egypt, perhaps she sits on a well or fountain. Mary holds Christ on her lap with one hand. And, as he leans towards Joseph, she catches a loop in his scarf with her finger. Kneeling before Christ, Joseph wears a dark blue tunic and yellow cloak. But Raphael’s image is more than just a family portrait made exotic by the presence of a palm tree.
Raphael painted this work, between 1506 and 1507, toward the end of a period he spent in Florence. The circular shape of this oil on panel painting, which is called a “tondo,” was a popular format for private devotional images in Renaissance Florence. Raphael advances the devotional purpose of this work by focusing his image on the spiritual connection between Christ and Joseph. Pay attention to how their eyes are fixed on each other. And notice, as well, how their exchange is being observed by Mary.
Christ and Joseph have an intriguing relationship. While Christ is not his son, Joseph assumes the role of Christ’s earthly father. In Christian art, Joseph is often envisioned as an older man initially perplexed by Christ’s miraculous birth. To visualize Joseph’s confusion, Raphael casts a shadow across Joseph’s noble profile. But Raphael’s devotional painting captures a moment in which Joseph grows in understanding and faith. And the Renaissance master draws his presumed Christian viewer into a moment in which Christ has revealed himself as God incarnate.
This painting gets its title from the prominently situated palm tree. This tree references a miracle that Christ supposedly performed during the arduous escape. Not mentioned in the Bible, but according to tradition, Mary became hungry as she sat under a palm tree. But the tree was too tall for Joseph to reach the fruit. So, Christ commanded the tree to bend over.
We see this miracle in a print by Martin Schongauer. Here angels bend the tree as Joseph picks dates.
But Raphael imagines a moment after the miracle. Kneeling before Christ, Joseph is holding what he has collected. If Raphael meant to evoke the miracle of the palm tree, why did he not depict the miracle of the palm tree? Perhaps the answer reveals something about Raphael’s artistic character.
In works such as La Belle Jardinière, Raphael visualizes a world is a state of complete harmony. Alongside the cerebral investigations of Leonardo da Vinci’s art or the terribiltà of Michelangelo’s spiritual drama, Raphael’s contribution to the art of the High Renaissance is an aesthetic method of sacred perfection visualized in natural unity.
So, it makes sense that Raphael doesn’t depict this miracle’s most sensational moment. Instead, he shows the resolution of the narrative. For Raphael, the completion of Christ’s miracle is not the collection of dates, it is Joseph’s spiritual transformation. Raphael’s favoring of harmony over drama is characteristic of his artistic temperament.
However, at the same time, Raphael’s emphasis on the miracle’s resolution also serves his painting’s devotional purpose. As Christ reaches toward Joseph, he looks at the skeptical old man as if to ask, “now do you believe?” Mary is witnessing her husband’s doubt being transformed into belief. And Raphael’s painting is designed to cultivate this same faith journey in its presumed Renaissance Christian viewer.
By including two types of figures, Joseph who is in the process of discovering Christ and Mary who already has faith, Raphael creates a work that speaks to a range of viewers. Or perhaps even the same viewer at different moments in life when either doubt or faith seems to be stronger. But, at any point in the viewer’s spiritual journey, the natural grace of Raphael’s art offers a moment of sacred refreshment.
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Raffaello Sanzio: Holy Family with a Palm Tree, 1506–1507, oil on panel, 39.9 in. diameter
Dr. James Romaine is a Professor of Art History at Lander University. He is a graduate of Wheaton College and The Graduate School of the City University of New York. His books include Art as Sacred Perception and Beholding: Christ and Christianity in African American Art. Dr. Romaine’s series Art for Advent can be found on his YouTube channel Seeing Art History.
ArtWay Visual Meditation 1 December 2024