Pablo de Rojas

PABLO DE ROJAS (Alcalá la Real, 1549 - Granada, 1611)
"Immaculate Conception".
Carved and polychrome wood. Eyes of vitreous paste of the XVIII century.
Measurements: 68 x 27 x 26 cm.
Round sculpture representing the Immaculate Conception. In this case the figure of the Virgin rises in a monumental way being defined by rounded forms that give the work a great presence. The quality of the carving is reflected in the face that stands out for its very sweet features. The theme of the Immaculate Conception, very frequent in the Spanish art of the 17th century, became one of the national identity signs of Spain as a Catholic country. It is one of the most genuinely local themes of the Spanish Baroque school, since our country was the main defender of this mystery, and the one that fought most insistently to make it a dogma of faith. In this context, numerous artists and intellectuals worked to build a clear iconography that would help spread the Immaculate Conception, bringing together symbolism and popular fervor.
Pablo de Rojas, an artist who marked the passage of a new era and the emergence of great Andalusian imagery during the 17th century, was the son of a painter from Sardinia, although he settled in Alcalá la Real. In 1579 he moved to the city of Granada, at that time in artistic boom, receiving the teaching of Rodrigo Moreno and becoming the teacher of Juan Martínez Montañés. Among his outstanding works is his intervention in the altarpiece of the Monastery of San Jerónimo in Granada, where crucifixes predominate. His work is characterized by the evolution of his style to a briskness and dynamism of a completely baroque character, as can be seen in the carving that is presented, of oval structure, which shows the figure of St. Joseph: tremendously pathetic, with a marked dynamism and face of great expressiveness, without falling however in vulgarity. It presents a figure that is transmitted through calm attitudes and a sober gesticulation.
Spanish Baroque sculpture is one of the most authentic and personal examples of our art, because its conception and its form of expression arose from the people and the deepest feelings that nested in it. With the economy of the State broken, the nobility in decline and the high clergy burdened with heavy taxes, it was the monasteries, the parishes and the confraternities of clerics and laymen who promoted its development, the works sometimes being financed by popular subscription. Sculpture was thus compelled to embody the prevailing ideals in these environments, which were none other than religious ones, at a time when the counter-reformist doctrine demanded from art a realistic language so that the faithful would understand and identify with what was represented, and an expression endowed with an intense emotional content to increase the fervor and devotion of the people. The religious subject is, therefore, the preferred theme of Spanish sculpture of this period, which in the first decades of the century began with a priority interest in capturing the natural, to progressively intensify throughout the century the expression of expressive values, which is achieved through the movement and variety of gestures, the use of light resources and the representation of moods and feelings.