Charlene Villaseñor Black’s Creating the Cult of Saint Joseph is a long overdue examination of the social and cultural functions of images of Saint Joseph in Baroque Spain and Mexico. As the author herself reminds us, “Hispanists have long been engaged in recovering archival documents, producing monographic studies, and documenting artistic patronage. . . . Whereas Spanish court art, mythology, still life, and collecting have been explored in depth, less scholarly attention has been directed to the thousands of Madonnas, Crucifixions, saints and martyrs represented in Spain and the Americas” (14). This lack of attention to religious subjects in Hispanic art scholarship makes Villaseñor’s effort all the more significant in the field.

The book is an ambitious attempt at studying the cultural and social functions of images of Saint Joseph in Spain and Mexico, arguing that since “colonialism occurred not just in the colonies but also in the mother country,” the traditional divisions between Europe and the “New World” should be broken down when studying the art of the period. The author uses a wealth of primary and secondary sources to trace the development of the cult of Saint Joseph in the Spanish Empire, and its visual expression through devotional imagery. In the process, she uncovers a complex web of cultural influences between the visual practices of Spain and Mexico, realizing that, in some cases, the influences flowed not only from the center to the colonies, but also vice versa. By applying methodologies prevalent in Latin American art-historical scholarship, including postcolonial and gender theories, the author has made an important contribution to both Spanish and Mexican religious art history.

The book consists of an introduction followed by six chapters and an epilogue. After summarizing the creation of the cult of Saint Joseph in the Spanish Empire in chapter 1, the next five chapters deal respectively with the imagery of Saint Joseph as loving husband, head of the holy family, surrogate father, laborer, and model for a good death. Chapter 1 demonstrates quite conclusively that the gradual attribution to Saint Joseph of characteristics previously associated with a native Mexican deity, Tlaloc, the “god of the rains,” was a means to convert the native Mexican population to Catholicism. Chapter 2 makes a persuasive argument for the use of the cult of Saint Joseph in the American colonies as a means to impose a European marriage model, which excluded indigenous practices such as polygamy and divorce. Images of Saint Joseph were a means to influence indigenous family practices by implying that a patriarchal and monogamous style of marriage was more desirable. Saint Joseph was used as a model for the ideal husband: chaste, supportive of his wife, and even forgiving of suspected adultery. Images of the Betrothal of Joseph and Mary, of the Visitation, and of the Dream of Joseph served to reinforce these themes. Chapter 3, which focuses on the increasing centrality of Saint Joseph in images of the Holy Family, successfully demonstrates the proliferation in Mexico of images of the Earthly Trinity that included not only the nuclear Holy Family but also Saints Anne and Joachim, and the extended family of the Virgin. This development occurred despite the fact that these types of representations were actively discouraged by the Church, a point that merits some reconsideration, as will be discussed below. Villaseñor suggests that the importance of the holy women and the extended family of Mary in Mexican Holy Family representations may reflect indigenous family practices and gender roles.

Chapter 4, which focuses on Saint Joseph as surrogate father to the Christ child, argues convincingly that images of Joseph tenderly caring for the baby Jesus were part of a concerted campaign by the Catholic church to involve men more deeply in the daily lives of their families. The author notes the similarities between images of a standing Joseph holding the Christ child, and images of the Madonna standing with her child, concluding that by visually equating Joseph with the Madonna, religious artists and church authorities were raising the saint’s standing in the eyes of Catholic believers. In her fifth chapter, Villaseñor focuses on images of the carpenter’s workshop, which the author rightly considers to function as a means of elevating the nobility of work and underlining the sanctity of labor in the Spanish Empire. This was particularly important at a time of deep economic crisis, when Spanish attitudes toward manual labour were almost wholly negative (although this has become a topic of recent debate among historians). Finally, chapter 6 explores images of the Death of Joseph, his Coronation, and his Protection (or spiritual patronage). The author persuasively demonstrates that images of the Coronation and the Protection were much more frequent in Mexican than in Spanish art, and quite likely functioned as emblems of allegiance to the Spanish crown.

While Villaseñor’s analysis of the social and ideological functions of images of Saint Joseph in the Spanish Empire is, generally, highly convincing, there are nevertheless a number of issues inadequately addressed in the book. The two primary shortfalls can be seen in Villaseñor’s analysis of the influence of the Catholic Church on artistic production and the context in which the images were produced.

In the introduction, Villaseñor states that “this book argues that the repetitive nature of much Hispanic religious imagery results from the censorious power of the Spanish Inquisition, which discouraged experimentation in religious art, and from the use of the images as didactic tools to teach Catholic worshippers” (15). Although there is no denying the repetitive nature of much religious art in Baroque Spain and its colonies, it is questionable whether Inquisitorial prescription was solely responsible for it. Villaseñor herself provides examples of images which seem to have escaped the purview of the Inquisition: that is, of the Earthly Trinity, whose cult was actively discouraged by the Inquisition. In fact, despite the church’s formal insistence at countless provincial synods on the need for images to follow agreed representational traditions, religious images that were deemed “incorrect” by the church authorities, expressions of profound institutional and popular fervor, had always existed in the Spanish Empire. (See, for instance, Jesús Hernández Perera’s articles on images of the Cristo de la Victoria in mid-seventeenth century Spain, “Domingo de la Rioja: el Cristo de Felipe IV en Serradilla,” in Archivo Español de Arte 25 (1952): 267–86; and “Iconografía Española: El Cristo de los Dolores,” in Archivo Español de Arte 27 (1954): 47–62.) This should be an indicator that the Inquisition’s control over artistic creation was not as firm as we have been led to believe; yet scholars of religious art in Spain and its colonies have never comprehensively explored this issue. Villaseñor simply ignores the contradiction in her argument. Although she notes the numerous Mexican departures from the canon of representation of the Holy Family established by the Inquisition, she still insists on an over-arching Inquisitorial sway over religious art. This belief stems from a simplifying tenor within the discipline about the conditions of production of religious imagery during this period in the Spanish Empire, largely ignoring the role played by workshop practices, patrons’ personal tastes, and the targeted audiences.

The second topic that receives little attention in the book is the micro-context in which the images of Saint Joseph were created. The author discusses the ideological and social functions of the images too abstractly, without much reference to local conditions of image creation. For instance, exploring the new centrality of Saint Joseph in images of the Holy Family, Villaseñor provides examples of paintings such as Murillo’s Holy Family with the Little Bird (1618–82; Prado, Madrid), Alonso Cano’s Circumcision (1601–67; La Magdalena, Getafe, in situ), and Claudio Coello’s Saint Joseph with the Christ Child/Holy Family (1642–93; Toledo Institute of Art), in which Joseph seems to take precedence over the Virgin Mary in the composition. However, since we have no data about the circumstances in which the paintings were commissioned, where they hung originally, and who commissioned them, we lack any demonstrable basis for the proposed interpretation: the elevation of Saint Joseph at the expense of his wife. Consider the eminent possibility that the paintings Villaseñor cites were hung close to images of the Madonna and Child or the Immaculate Conception. If such were the case a devotional micro-context existed that is not included in the author’s analysis. Without knowing the context up or down it is difficult to gauge whether the author’s conclusions are warranted.

Overall, Creating the Cult of Saint Joseph is a refreshing and stimulating contribution to the fields of Spanish and Latin American art history and cultural studies. Villaseñor´s combination of colonial and gender theories with art-historical analysis is sure to yield interesting results in future studies of religious art in the Spanish Empire. Her bibliography is an impressive collection of archival material, primary religious texts, and wide-ranging secondary sources; it promises to become an indispensable research tool for students of the period.