This twelfth-century relief comes from a cloister column capital in a Spanish Benedictine monastery. In the Rule of St Benedict, the cloister is described as the workshop of the spiritual art (Chapter 4). Here in pacing meditation and prayer, the invisible work of contemplative closeness is tirelessly pursued.

In the prologue to the Rule, a supine dreamer envisioning angels (in that case Jacob in Genesis 28) is associated with the monastic virtue of humility which underpins the vowed life. Here, the closed mouths of Joseph and his visitor in this relief also speak of its character: the role of silence and the call to attentive hearkening in meditation. The angel’s presence further recalls the Rule’s stress on human action as being entirely in God’s sight, through God’s angels (Chapter 7).

In contrast to a subject matter which suggests spiritual demands meaningful to the meditating monk, the capital’s chiselled red sandstone affirms its crafted materiality. Joseph, and Jesus his son, are described in Matthew's gospel as tekton, a craftsperson (Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:3): work with wood, metal, or stone has all been posited. The depth of the relief, the patterned realizations of drape and texture, the almost reptilian unfolding of the angel’s body in seeming scales of stone, the spiralling curls and grooved beard—all these carry the strong impress of the hand of its medieval worker.

In this artwork, in context, two forms of labour complement one another, as the less visible work of prayer and openness to God is shown in handwork. Joseph is a humble artisan whose decisive actions, as he leads his family in and out of exile, as he supports them by the labour of his hands, make possible the safety of mother and Messiah.

However, as this scriptural story suggests, behind this action lies a spiritual hinterland of humility, vision, and silent dialogue with the divine. In the sculpture action and contemplation, craft and vision come together: the sacred is made solid in the weighty presence of the angel’s hand, balancing his incorporeal body almost like a gymnast on Joseph’s chest. We are invited to consider the balance of ora et labora, the activity of contemplation and the meditation of action.

The possibility of disclosure, represented by the presence of the angel, is taken seriously in a community where labours and duties of every kind open out to the insistent and irresistible word of God.

References

Fry, Timothy, OSB (ed.). 1981. RB 1980: The Rule of St Benedict in Latin and English (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press)