Pedro de Mena (1628–1688) Christ as the Man of Sorrows, 1673.
Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid © 2009 Photo Gonzalo de la Serna.
Reproduction courtesy of Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid
The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600 – 1700, NGA London
Created to shock the senses and stir the soul… ‘The Sacred Made Real’ presents a landmark reappraisal of religious art from the Spanish Golden Age
21 October 2009 – 24 January 2010
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Paintings including masterpieces by Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán are displayed for the very first time alongside Spain’s remarkable ‘polychrome’ (painted) sculptures.
While the religious paintings of Velázquez and Zurbarán are relatively well known, the polychrome sculptures which also emerged from 17th-century Spain have never been the subjects of a major exhibition. Still passionately venerated in monasteries, churches and processions across the Iberian Peninsula, very few of these sculptures have ever been exhibited overseas.
During the Spanish Counter-Reformation, religious patrons, particularly the Dominican, Carthusian and Franciscan orders, challenged painters and sculptors to bring the sacred to life, to inspire both Christian devotion and the emulation of the saints. The exhibition brings together some of the finest depictions of key Christian themes including the Passion of Christ, the Immaculate Conception and the portrayal of saints, notably Pedro de Mena’s austere rendition of Saint Francis Standing in Meditation, 1663, which has never before left the sacristy of Toledo Cathedral.
By installing 16 polychrome sculptures and 16 paintings side-by-side, the exhibition aims to show that the ‘hyperrealistic’ approach of painters such as Velázquez and Zurbarán was clearly informed by their familiarity – and in some cases direct involvement – with sculpture.
Last seen in Europe over 50 years ago and a crucial loan to the exhibition, Zurbarán’s masterpiece, ‘The Crucifixion’, 1627 (Art Institute of Chicago) achieves an astonishing sculptural illusion on canvas. When seen in close proximity with Juan Martínez Montañés’ polychrome sculpture of 1617 (Church of the Convent of Santo Ángel, Seville), these two art forms begin an intense natural dialogue.
In Seville, Francisco Pacheco taught Velázquez, later his son-in-law, and a generation of artists the skill of painting sculpture as an integral element of their training. Pacheco himself painted the flesh tones and drapery of exquisite wooden sculptures carved by fellow Andalucian, Montañés, known by his contemporaries as ‘the god of wood’. Among the most important examples is their life-size ‘Saint Francis Borgia Meditating on a Skull’, 1624 (Church of the Anunciación, Seville University) commissioned by the Jesuits to celebrate his beatification that year. Another highlight of the exhibition is the fascinating juxtaposition of Velázquez’s ‘The Immaculate Conception’, 1618–19 (National Gallery, London) with Montañés’s exquisite polychrome sculpture of the same subject, about 1620 (Seville University).
The religious art of 17th-century Spain pursued a quest for realism with uncompromising zeal and genius. Far from being separate, this exhibition proposes that the arts of painting and sculpture were intricately linked and interdependent
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