Summary
Joachim was the father of the Virgin Mary and stories about him are told in the apocryphal 'Infancy Gospels'. In 1911 Spencer's friends and fellow Slade students Gwen (1885-1957) and Jacques Raverat (1885-1925) gave him Giotto and his Works In Padua (published 1854) by John Ruskin (1819-1900). Spencer was greatly inspired by its illustrations of the frescoes in the Arena Chapel at Padua, and by the text accompanying the woodcut of Joachim retires to the Sheepfold:
Then Joachim, in the following night, resolved to separate himself from companionship; to go to the desert places among the mountains, with his flocks; and to inhabit those mountains, in order not to hear such insults. And immediately Joachim rose from his bed, and called about him all his servant and shepherds, and caused to be gathered together all his flocks … and went with them and with the shepherds into the hills. (E.T. Cook & A. Wedderburn (eds… (read more)
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