|
Although the Scriptures make no mention of Joseph's death, in both legends and pictorial representations, the Virgin and her Son are found to be present when he died. In this interior a brownish mist, playing cherubs and mysterious light suggest the Divine presence. The eternal Father looks down upon the lined old face of Joseph, Christ' earthly father. The figures of Christ belongs equally to the earthly Holy Family group and that of the celestial Holy Trinity, representing, as it were, an intermediary between the two in the composition. Lost in thought, the Virgin looks gently downwards at the little angels in the foreground as they play with the old carpenter's tools and a spray of lilies. Although the spiral composition rises in sweeping curves to a height, the figures are represented in the foreground. Reality and vision pervade each other: neither the figures nor the objects are given a definite surface; there are only indistinct coloured forms and shadows. A certain visionary manner of painting still dominates the work of the artist, then around thirty, but the soft brown mist and mysterious lights grow clearer in his later paintings.
The painter is thought to have been commissioned by the Trinitarians of Buda for their church. Maulbertsch painted a number of larger but in many respects similar altarpieces and frescoes depicting the death of St. Joseph for the Carmelites in Székesfehérvár at about the same time. The painting in Buda was left in its original place for scarcely fifteen years. When Joseph II dissolved the Order, the structure of the altar was removed to an unknown destination, while the painting found its way to Nagytétény. However, Maulbertsch, the greatest master of baroque painting in Central Europe, continued to work in Hungary where his later large frescoes and altarpieces were for the most part commissioned by local bishops.
|
