Description
Spanish school; second half of the 16th century. ‘Saint’. Carved, gilded and polychrome wood. It has faults. Measurements: 111 x 50 x 28 cm. The lack of iconographic attributes of this sculpture does not allow us to discern who the protagonist of this devotional work is. However, its dimensions and gestures indicate that it was probably originally part of a larger sculptural group, probably made up of a procession of saints. At the beginning of the 16th century, Spain was the European nation best prepared to receive the new humanist concepts of life and art due to its spiritual, political and economic conditions, although from the point of view of plastic forms, its adaptation of those introduced by Italy was slower due to the need to learn the new techniques and to change the taste of the clientele. Sculpture reflects perhaps better than other artistic fields this desire to return to the classical Greco-Roman world, which in its nudes exalts the individuality of man, creating a new style whose vitality surpasses mere copying. Anatomy, the movement of the figures, compositions with a sense of perspective and balance, the naturalistic play of folds, the classical attitudes of the figures soon began to be valued; but the strong Gothic tradition maintained expressiveness as a vehicle for the profound spiritualist sense that informs our best Renaissance sculptures. This strong and healthy tradition favoured the continuity of religious sculpture in polychrome wood, which accepted the formal beauty offered by Italian Renaissance art with a sense of balance that avoided its predominance over the immaterial content that animated the forms. In the early years of the century, Italian works arrived in our lands and some of our sculptors went to Italy, where they learned first-hand the new standards in the most progressive centres of Italian art, whether in Florence or Rome, and even in Naples. On their return, the best of them, such as Berruguete, Diego de Siloe and Ordóñez, revolutionised Spanish sculpture through Castilian sculpture, even advancing the new mannerist, intellectualised and abstract derivation of the Italian Cinquecento, almost at the same time as it was produced in Italy.
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Spanish school; second half of the 16th century. ‘Saint’. Carved, gilded and polychrome wood. It has faults. Measurements: 111 x 50 x 28 cm. The lack of iconographic attributes of this sculpture does not allow us to discern who the protagonist of this devotional work is. However, its dimensions and gestures indicate that it was probably originally part of a larger sculptural group, probably made up of a procession of saints. At the beginning of the 16th century, Spain was the European nation best prepared to receive the new humanist concepts of life and art due to its spiritual, political and economic conditions, although from the point of view of plastic forms, its adaptation of those introduced by Italy was slower due to the need to learn the new techniques and to change the taste of the clientele. Sculpture reflects perhaps better than other artistic fields this desire to return to the classical Greco-Roman world, which in its nudes exalts the individuality of man, creating a new style whose vitality surpasses mere copying. Anatomy, the movement of the figures, compositions with a sense of perspective and balance, the naturalistic play of folds, the classical attitudes of the figures soon began to be valued; but the strong Gothic tradition maintained expressiveness as a vehicle for the profound spiritualist sense that informs our best Renaissance sculptures. This strong and healthy tradition favoured the continuity of religious sculpture in polychrome wood, which accepted the formal beauty offered by Italian Renaissance art with a sense of balance that avoided its predominance over the immaterial content that animated the forms. In the early years of the century, Italian works arrived in our lands and some of our sculptors went to Italy, where they learned first-hand the new standards in the most progressive centres of Italian art, whether in Florence or Rome, and even in Naples. On their return, the best of them, such as Berruguete, Diego de Siloe and Ordóñez, revolutionised Spanish sculpture through Castilian sculpture, even advancing the new mannerist, intellectualised and abstract derivation of the Italian Cinquecento, almost at the same time as it was produced in Italy.
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