For anyone visiting Antoni Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia Expiatory Temple in Barcelona, the sculptural decoration of the eastern or “Nativity” façade can seem visually overwhelming in its complexity. A dizzying array of scenarios and figures intertwines amid the convoluted vegetal forms that encompass and fill the exterior wall like a dense jungle. This emphasis on overall, curvilinear, plantlike form characterizes what we usually call Art Nouveau, but which was known in Spain at that time as Modernismo. Arguably the greatest artist to have worked in this style, Gaudi is being considered by the Roman Catholic Church for beatification, an important step along the road to sainthood, and the process has advanced far enough for the artist to be referred to by Catholics as the “venerable” Gaudi.
To treat the complex sculptural program of the façade in its entirety is beyond the scope of this essay, but I want to isolate and discuss a few individual scenes from the complicated iconography in order to interpret them in their contribution to the unfolding narrative of the Incarnation, especially as seen through the experiences of St. Joseph, Christ’s foster father. Paradoxically, photographs of the sculptural decoration reveal details more clearly than seeing them from below in person.
Gaudi called the basilica an “expiatory temple” because it was built in expiation for what he and his patrons considered the two major errors (or sins) of the modern world: crass materialism and atheistic communism. The urgency of these matters became more pronounced during the First World War and the Russian Revolution, which swept a communist regime into power that considered the church its enemy. Throughout this entire period, work on the sculptural embellishment of the façade proceeded along in fits and starts and was continually revised and redesigned by Gaudi as the work progressed.
The temple was originally commissioned by the Confraternity of St. Joseph as a neo-Gothic structure, but when Gaudi took over the project, these plans were scrapped. Gaudi developed the architectural design in the new Modernismo style that he was soon to become renowned for in his domestic architecture, interior design, and outdoor landscape architecture (as in his nearby Park Güell). So pervasive is Gaudi’s architectural influence on Barcelona that it has been called “Gaudi’s City” by several authors.
Above the right portal to the basilica on the eastern façade of the building is a representation of St. Joseph with Jesus as a toddler. Notice how the stone is carved in a very robust manner, avoiding excessive detail and finish in favor of clarity and readability from below. Their relationship is warm and affectionate with a playful, adoring Jesus and a solicitous, protective, grandfatherly Joseph.
The Betrothal of Mary and Joseph depicts a scene from the apocryphal proto-gospel attributed to Jesus’ brother James. Mary was a Nazirite who wove and embroidered vestments and altar cloths in the temple in Jerusalem, according to this source. But as she was nearing puberty, the priests worried that she would soon be ritually impure due to menstruation and so could no longer serve at the Court of the Women in the temple.
As a sign of who was to henceforth protect the Blessed Virgin, the staff of Joseph, an elderly widower, burst into flowering blossoms. In the sculptural representation, an astonished Joseph first realizes his role in the drama of the Incarnation, while below the couple, a whole overflowing basket of roses rests, while a temple priest officiates at the betrothal (a scene is often incorrectly identified as the couple’s wedding).
Because betrothal in first-century Jewish law was a legally binding contractual arrangement, Joseph considered “divorcing” her when he found out Mary was pregnant (and this would certainly be legitimate grounds for divorce), but an angel appeared to him in a dream, according to the Gospel of Matthew, urging him to enter the marriage anyway and raise the boy as if Jesus were his own son.
An angel also appeared to Joseph after the visit of the Magi, warning him to flee Bethlehem because of the impending slaughter of all male children ordered by King Herod. This scene of slaughter is dramatically represented by Gaudi with a soldier about to impale an infant with his sword, while the mother kneels before him, desperately pleading with him and trying to restrain his hand. On the ground before them lies the lifeless body of another murdered infant.
The holy family escapes during the night and resides in Egypt for a while, paradoxically reversing the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt centuries earlier. Here Gaudi represents the angel as a handsome muscular youth leading the way, with Mary and the slumbering infant Jesus riding a donkey while Joseph their steadfast protector follows behind them on foot.
After Herod’s death, the family returns but settles quietly in Nazareth, a small village in the Galilee region north of Judea (to avoid notice). Here Jesus, represented by Gaudi as an adolescent, works in the carpentry shop of his adoptive, earthly father. St. Joseph is mentioned just one more time, in the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus had been accidently left behind at the Temple when he was 12. It is generally presumed that Joseph died at some point between this incident and the time of Jesus’ baptism as an adult.
An important but often overlooked symbolic representation of Joseph in the façade shows him piloting a small boat into a dark cavern. A lamp is affixed to the front of the vessel to help him peer into the darkness. He juts his head forward as if straining to see, his right hand firmly on the rudder. Although not visible in this photo, between him and the lamp is a miniature tent that represents the Ark of the Covenant. Mary is the ark, while Jesus is the covenant contained within it, a covenant not inscribed in stone, but a new, incarnate covenant in the flesh.
Not far from Barcelona, high among the strangely shaped mountains and hills that characterize that region, is the Benedictine Monastery of Santa Maria de Montserrat. Legend has it that below the mountain on which the monastery is built, an underground river once ran. The stone above the boat in the sculpture is clearly Montserrat, and it is into this dark, hidden, underground cavernous stream that Joseph steers the Ark in this intriguing sculptural detail. It is an apt metaphor for our journey though the shadowy realms of life and how the light of Christ, together with the guidance of St. Joseph, can pilot us safely through the darkness.
The Nativity façade was almost finished when Gaudi was hit by a streetcar in Barcelona and killed in 1926. He was 73 years old. Drawings and models for completion of the temple remained in his studio until they were tragically destroyed by anarchists in 1936, who set fire to it during the Spanish Civil War. Despite these setbacks, construction of the temple continued. Clergy began celebrating the Mass at the church in 2010, and it is scheduled to finally be complete within the next decade.
Dr. Dennis Raverty is a retired professor of art history whose work has been published in Art Journal, Art in America, International Review of African American Art, Women’s Art Journal, Illustration Magazine, and Art Papers, where he was a contributing editor.
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