Spanish Renaissance school; first half of the 16th century.

Spanish Renaissance school; first half of the 16th century.
"Emblem of the Eagle of St. John".
Oil on panel.
Presents faults.
Measurements: 53 x 62 cm.
This Emblem of the Eagle of San Juan, of the first half of the century, constitutes a singular testimony of the survival of the evangelist iconography in the devotional scope of the Hispanic Renaissance. The work responds to a context in which medieval tradition, Christian humanism and new formal sensibilities coexist, especially in modest supports destined for private contemplation or institutional spaces.
From the stylistic point of view, we can appreciate a still contained language, of late Gothic roots, but already open to Renaissance solutions in the compositional clarity and in the resounding affirmation of the figure. The eagle, symbol of St. John the Evangelist and of the spiritual elevation of the Word (as indicated in the Latin inscription, verbum caro factum est), is represented with solemn frontality and strong iconic presence, underlined by the golden nimbus and the scapular hanging from its mouth.
The Renaissance pictorial school in Spain occupies a fundamental place in the history of European art for its ability to integrate Italian and Flemish formal novelties with a local tradition marked by devotion, symbolism and the permanence of the medieval.