08 works, Today, July 31st, is Joseph of Arimathea's day, his story thru art #212

Unknown artist

St. Joseph of Arimathea

I have no further description of this artwork at this time

Christ being taken down from His Cross by St. Joseph of Arimathea, the Theotokos, St. John the Theologian, and the Myrrh-bearing

Joseph of Arimathea was, according to all four canonical gospels, the man who assumed responsibility for the burial of Jesus after his crucifixion. He was a wealthy member of the Jewish Sanhedrin and a secret follower of Christ;  which is why he did not join in the Council's actions against Jesus.

Unknown artist

Joseph of Arimathea asks Pilate for the body of Jesus Christ

Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St.John the Baptist of Washington DC.

I have no further description of this artwork at this time

After the death of Jesus, Joseph asked Pilate for permission to take Jesus' body and bury it properly. Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead for some time. When he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the body to Joseph.

Unknown artist

Descent from the cross, c. 14th century

Byzantine icon

Church of Agia Marina, Kalopanagiotis, Cyprus

Joseph of Arimathea is the figure standing in the center, in blue-green robes holding the Body of Christ.

Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds.

Pietro Perugino, (1448–1523)

Lamentation over the Dead Christ, c. 1495

Oil on panel

Height: 220 cm (86.6 in); Width: 195 cm (76.7 in)

Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Florence

Pietro Perugino  (1448–1523)
Lamentation over the Dead Christ, c. 1495
Detail of Joseph of Arimathea
Oil on panel
Height: 220 cm (86.6 in); Width: 195 cm (76.7 in)
Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Florence

Pietro Perugino (1446/1452 – 1523), born Pietro Vannucci, was an Italian Renaissance painter of the Umbrian school, who developed some of the qualities that found classic expression in the High Renaissance. Raphael was his most famous pupil.

He was born Pietro Vannucci in Città della Pieve, Umbria, the son of Cristoforo Marie Vannucci. His nickname characterizes him as from Perugia, the chief city of Umbria. Scholars continue to dispute the socioeconomic status of the Vannucci family. While certain academics maintain that Vannucci worked his way out of poverty, others argue that his family was among the wealthiest in the town. His exact date of birth is not known, but based on his age at death that was mentioned by Vasari and Giovanni Santi, it is believed that he was born between 1446 and 1452. More on Pietro Perugino

They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom. Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified. They buried Jesus in an unused tomb that St. Joseph intended for himself, where it was protected by a heavy stone rolled against the opening. 

Unknown artist

Chirst Placed in Tomb Mary Joseph of Airmetihia 

Mosaic 

Church of the Holy Sepulchre Jerusalem

Attributed to Italian School

Joseph of Arimathea Receiving the Body of Christ, about 1550

Oil on panel

29.5 x 22.5 cm cm

Bury Art Gallery Museum and Archive

In this depiction of the scene preparatory to the Entombment of Christ the body is surrounded by figures before the tomb. The body is supported under the arms by a young man usually identified as St John. The Madonna stands behind Christ with her head lowered and her hands gesturing in despair. Mary Magdalene kneeling in the left foreground kisses Christ's hand, and the third Mary is also present in the left background. This composition closely follows Italian prototypes from the sixteenth century. The modelling of the torso of Christ also suggests a date after Michelangelo in the Mannerist style. More on this work

Italian School, 16th Century. The first two decades of the 16th century witnessed the harmonious balance and elevated conception of High Renaissance style, perfected in Florence and Rome by Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo. It brought together a seamless blend of form and meaning. In Venice, Bellini, Giorgione, and Titian devoted themselves to an art that was more sensual, with luminous color and a tactile handling of paint, preoccupations that would attract Venetian artists for generations, including Tintoretto and Veronese later in the century.

In the 1520s, Florence and Rome, but not Venice, saw a stylistic shift following the social and political upheaval ensuing from the disastrous Sack of Rome. Mannerism, as practiced by Bronzino, Pontormo, and Rosso, was a self-consciously elegant style that traded naturalism for artifice, employing unnaturally compressed space, elongated figures, and acid color. While mannerism became popular internationally, and lingered in northern Europe, by around 1580 it had fallen out of favor in Italy. One factor was the desire of the Church, challenged by the Protestant Revolution, to connect with the faithful. In place of mannerism’s ingenuous complications and artificiality, the Counter-Reformation Church required painting that was direct and emotionally resonant. The “reform of painting,” as it was called, was launched by two brothers and a cousin in Bologna: Annibale, Agostino, and Lodovico Carracci. They established an academy that emphasized drawing from life and looked to inspiration from Titian and other Renaissance masters, restoring the naturalism and classical balance of the early 16th century. More Italian School, 16th Century

The story that Joseph was related to Jesus may originate from the tradition that the senior male relative of a crucified person was obliged to deal with the body. Jesus' father was no longer around, so if Joseph of Arimathea did volunteer for the task, that suggests that he must have been related to Jesus in some important way. 

William Blake

Joseph of Arimathea preaching to the inhabitants of Britain, c. 1796

British Museum

William Blake (November 28, 1757 - August 12, 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, Blake's work is now considered seminal in the history of both poetry and the visual arts.

Blake's prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the (English) language". His visual artistry has led one modern critic to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced".


Although he only once travelled any further than a day's walk outside London over the course of his life, his creative vision engendered a diverse and symbolically rich corpus, which embraced 'imagination' as "the body of God", or "Human existence itself". More on William Blake

One of the abiding legends of early English Christianity is that Joseph of Arimathea visited the West Country of England with the teenage Jesus. Both Somerset and Cornwall claim to have been visited by Joseph and Jesus.

Unknown artist

Jesus & Joseph of Arimathea on holiday in Glastonbury

Pilton church, Barnstaple in Devon

I have no further description of this artwork at this time

Another legend states that Joseph of Arimathea became a missionary after the death of Jesus and was eventually sent to England to preach the Gospel. He took with him the Holy Grail, and his pilgrim's staff. More on Joseph of Arimathea

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