|
|
 |
| |
A search for sacred realism in Spain
The Sacred Made Real:
Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600-1700
Preview - National Gallery
THE god of wood must have been a great character.
That is what his contemporaries called Juan Martínez Montañés (1568-1649) because of his extraordinary skill as a carver.
Trained in Seville and Granada he was went to court in Madrid to model a portrait of Philip IV in 1635 and during that time, Velázquez painted him.
That work is featured in the National’s new exhibition of painting and sculpture from Spain 1600-1700 which opens, perhaps inappropriately, on Trafalgar Day October 21.
The Sacred Made Real aims at a reappraisal of the country’s religious art and includes masterpieces by Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán. But it centres on the polychrome or painted sculptures, still highly venerated, and many never exhibited outside Spain.
Works by Montañés, Pedro de Mena and Gregorio Fernández and others are to be displayed.
During the Counter Reformation artists were challenged to bring the sacred to life and this show gathers together the depiction of key Christian themes, from the passion of Christ to the celebration of saints.
A particular highlight is
St Francis Standing in Ecstasy, 1663, which has never before left Toledo cathedral.
The show allows the juxtaposition of great works, such as the Velázquez’s The Immaculate Conception 1618-19 with Montañés’s sculpture of the same. Sixteen polychrome sculptures and paintings are shown side by side.
“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,” say the organisers.
An accompanying exhibition The Making of a Spanish Polychrome Sculpture explores the technical aspects from carving through the gessoing process to the final touches of paint.
n The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600-1700 at the National Gallery, Sainsbury Wing, from October 21 until January 24.
Admission £8, concessions available. Advance tickets www.nationalgallery.org.uk or call 0844 209 1778.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
