Master of San Vicente

MAESTRO DE SAN VICENTE (Active in Aragon in the 15th century)
"Saint John the Baptist.
Oil on panel. Cradled.
Attached report of Doña Isabel Mateo.
Measurements: 109 x 63 cm; 127 x 77 cm (frame).
The saint stands in the center of the composition with a solemn and imposing presence, unambiguously identified by his traditional attributes. He appears barefoot and covered by the austere camel skin characteristic of his iconography, barely perceptible under the rich and enveloping tunic that dignifies his figure and underlines his role as a prophet. In his left hand he holds a book on which rests the haloed lamb, unmistakable symbol of Christ, while with his right he points to the Agnus Dei, establishing an eloquent gesture of revelation.
The scene takes place in an interior open to a powdered sky, a resource that gives depth and aeration to the composition. The figure of the saint occupies almost the entire pictorial space, reinforcing an anatomical monumentality of marked realism, although tinged by certain distortions of gothic roots, especially noticeable in the treatment of the arm. This formal tension gives the work a notable interest, placing it in a moment of stylistic transition. An aesthetic inherited from the Gothic world coexists here with the new Renaissance precepts, visible both in the architecture of refined lines and in the verism of the face, of intense humanity and contained expressiveness.
The iconography refers to the figure of St. John the Baptist, son of the priest Zechariah and Elizabeth, cousin of the Virgin Mary, whose ascetic life in the Judean desert and his penitential preaching made him one of the most charismatic figures of early Christianity. It was he who recognized in Jesus the Messiah announced by the prophets and who baptized him in the Jordan. His tragic fate, his imprisonment by order of Herod Antipas and his subsequent beheading, with his head given to Salome, reinforced his status as a martyr and his powerful symbolic charge, widely exploited by Western art.
From the historical-artistic point of view, the work is inscribed in a context marked by the decisive influence of the Flemish school, whose impact was especially intense in the Spain of the 15th and early 16th centuries, favored by the close political and economic ties with the Netherlands. The Flemish painters promoted a language based on the meticulous observation of reality, attention to secondary details and a precise and draftsmanlike technique. With the arrival of the Italian Renaissance in the 16th century, this style evolved towards a greater classicism and a more sculptural sense of form, without completely renouncing its original heritage.
In the Aragonese school of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, these transformations were manifested early on thanks to the connection of the Crown of Aragon with Italy. The influence of the Quattrocento paved the way for later Mannerist currents, giving rise to a hybrid language that progressively abandoned the taste for minute detail of Hispano-Flemish in favor of greater formal clarity. However, this evolution was not homogeneous in the Peninsula: while on the Mediterranean coast the Italian novelties were quickly assimilated, in Castile and the interior the Flemish and late Gothic influences persisted for a longer period, encouraged by the patronage of the Catholic Monarchs and by a clientele still deeply attached to traditional forms.