Spanish school; possibly Granada, late 17th century.

Spanish school; possibly Granada, late seventeenth century.
"San Sebastian".
Carved and polychrome wood.
Presents faults and frame of the nineteenth century.
Measurements: 76 x 46 x 6 cm.
This relief represents Saint Sebastian tied to the tree, although the dates have not yet been nailed on his body. Of young and athletic aspect, as in normal in the representation of San Sebastian, he raises his look to the sky, accepting his martyrdom with serenity and faith, waiting to be crowned by an angel that departs from a break of glory and that goes to the saint. As is common in Spanish imagery, the scene is captured with great drama through the posture of the saint, whose body is folded in an exacerbated foreshortening. There is a great classical influence in the conception of this work, an example of this is the way in which the body of Saint Sebastian has been conceived, which has a certain exaggeration of the forms.
Stylistically, it is clear the strong influence in the present work of models of the Baroque of the XVII century of the Granada school, and not only in the iconography, but also in the model chosen as influence for the same one, in the decoration of the clothes, in the coloring, in the features of the face, etc. The Granada school, which starts from the strong influence of the Renaissance period, counted with great figures such as Pablo de Rojas, Juan Martínez Montañés (who was formed in the city with the previous one), Alonso de Mena, Alonso Cano, Pedro de Mena, Bernardo de Mora, Pedro Roldán, Torcuato Ruiz del Peral, etc. In general, the school does not neglect the beauty of the images and also follows the naturalism, as usual at the time, but it would always emphasize more the intimate and the recollection in some delicate images that would be somewhat similar to the rest of Andalusian schools in another series of details but that do not usually have the monumentality of the Sevillian ones. The work can be inscribed, specifically, in the stylistic circle of the Mora workshop (José and Diego). One of the most important workshops in Granada in the 17th century. The artistic legacy of this family of image makers, which spanned from the last third of the seventeenth century to the second half of the eighteenth century, was a milestone in the Granada school. Influenced by the work of both Alonso Cano and Pedro de Mena, an influence that led him to create a very personal and characteristic style.