Josef Arnold started out as a clog maker. In his youth he had to look after the family with his mother as a farm worker. He learned painting from Eberhard Zobel at Fiecht Monastery and attended the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts from 1818 to 1825.

In Vienna he married Franziska Kuchinka. He had two sons, Josef Arnold the Younger (* 1823 in Vienna, † 1862 in Innsbruck) and Alois († 1863 in Rome); both were painters and made numerous frescoes with him. In 1829 Arnold went on a study trip to Italy, which he had to break off after three months for health reasons.

Alois was less valued by his father than his brother Josef as a painter. In 1853 he moved to Rome, where he renounced art as a hermit lived in the country and died in 1863.

One of his pupils was Franz Plattner.