The Sacred Made Real at National Gallery
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.
Paintings including masterpieces by Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán are displayed for the very first time alongside Spain’s remarkable painted sculptures.
These sculptures 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. 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.
By installing 16 painted 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.
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, 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, with Montañés’s exquisite sculpture of the same subject..
To obtain even greater realism, some sculptors such as Pedro de Mena and Gregorio Fernández introduced glass eyes and tears as well as ivory teeth into their sculptures. Fernández’s astonishingly realistic Dead Christ incorporates the bark of a cork tree to simulate the effect of coagulated blood, and bull’s horn for Christ’s fingernails. It was fully intended that believers should feel truly in the presence of the dead Christ.
During Semana Santa (‘Holy Week’), some 17th-century painted sculptures are still carried through the streets, particularly in Seville, Granada and Valladolid, the most important centres of this art.
While sometimes deeply unsettling, depictions of Christ’s suffering or indeed Juan de Mesa’s Decapitated Head of Saint John the Baptist are also exquisitely finished. 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.
The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600–1700 takes place from 21 October 2009 – 24 January 2010 in the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery.
Paintings including masterpieces by Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán are displayed for the very first time alongside Spain’s remarkable painted sculptures.
These sculptures 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. 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.
By installing 16 painted 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.
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, 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, with Montañés’s exquisite sculpture of the same subject..
To obtain even greater realism, some sculptors such as Pedro de Mena and Gregorio Fernández introduced glass eyes and tears as well as ivory teeth into their sculptures. Fernández’s astonishingly realistic Dead Christ incorporates the bark of a cork tree to simulate the effect of coagulated blood, and bull’s horn for Christ’s fingernails. It was fully intended that believers should feel truly in the presence of the dead Christ.
During Semana Santa (‘Holy Week’), some 17th-century painted sculptures are still carried through the streets, particularly in Seville, Granada and Valladolid, the most important centres of this art.
While sometimes deeply unsettling, depictions of Christ’s suffering or indeed Juan de Mesa’s Decapitated Head of Saint John the Baptist are also exquisitely finished. 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.
The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600–1700 takes place from 21 October 2009 – 24 January 2010 in the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery.