Italian school; end of the XVII century.

Italian school; late seventeenth century.
"St. John the Baptist".
Carved marble.
Presents faults.
Measurements: 38 x 18 x 11 cm.
This is a sculpture carved in white marble, a work of the Italian Baroque school of the seventeenth century, a period in which Italian art reached one of its expressive peaks in the context of the Counter-Reformation aesthetics. The piece, possibly larger than life-size or on a monumental scale, stands out immediately for its extraordinary artistic quality, technical virtuosity and powerful communicative capacity.
The work represents a sacred figure captured in a moment of intense emotional charge. The sculptor has managed to freeze in marble a scene of contained movement, where the fluidity of the drapery and the inclination of the body are integrated into a dynamic composition that guides the viewer's gaze through an ascending visual path, typical of the theatrical and spiritual baroque.
The treatment of the marble is of extraordinary mastery: the polished surfaces of the face and hands contrast with the broken and vibrant texture of the folds, creating a play of light and shadow that gives an almost pictorial quality to the whole. This sculpture not only seeks to represent a body, but to reveal a state of the soul. The skin seems to breathe, the gesture communicates living emotion, and the marble - cold by nature - becomes here a medium of fervor and drama.
The Italian Baroque school, led by figures such as Gian Lorenzo Bernini, redefined Western sculpture by fusing the architectural, the scenographic and the spiritual. Far from the serenity of Renaissance classicism, Italian Baroque art embraced theatricality, religious passion and sensory illusion. These sculptures were conceived not only as autonomous works, but as elements integrated into complex decorative programs within churches, chapels and palaces, where sculpture interacted with architecture, painting and natural light to create an immersive experience.