Spanish school; end of the XVI century.

Spanish school; late sixteenth century.
"Dominican Saints".
Oil on panel.
It has the coat of arms of the Dominican order on the back.
It presents faults in the pictorial surface.
Measurements: 116 x 47 cm; 94 cm (united).
Pair of panels of the Spanish school of the end of the XVI century, representing two Dominican Saints. The pieces constitute a significant testimony of the religious art in the dawn of the Modern Age, in a moment in which the Hispanic painting looked for to conjugate the late Gothic tradition with the new Renaissance currents and with the increasing reforming spirit promoted by the post-Tridentine Church.
The works represent St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic of Guzman, founders of the most influential mendicant orders of Western Christianity. Both appear full-length, standing and with marked frontality, framed by a background of barely sketched landscape, dominated by cold tones and a sober atmosphere that intensifies the spirituality of the scene. St. Francis, dressed in his unmistakable brown habit and bare feet, holds a crucifix in a devotional attitude, underlining the centrality of the Passion in his spirituality. Saint Dominic, for his part, wears the black and white habit of his order, accompanied by a book, an attribute of his doctrinal work, and a lily, symbol of purity.
A detail of special interest is the back of the panels, where half of a Dominican coat of arms is painted on each one, suggesting that the pieces were part of a larger ensemble, probably an altarpiece or liturgical piece of furniture, destined to the exaltation of the founding saints and the visual legitimization of the order's identity.
From the stylistic point of view, the paintings show the expressive austerity typical of the Spanish school of the late 16th century, characterized by compositional clarity, rigor in the definition of attributes and chromatic restraint. More than in the search for an advanced naturalism, the painter's attention is focused on the devotional and pedagogical efficacy of the image, in line with the recommendations of the Council of Trent, which gave art an essential role in the instruction of the faithful.