Andalusian school; late seventeenth century.

Andalusian school; late seventeenth century.
"The flight to Egypt".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Measurements: 82,5 x 104 cm.
In full baroque this theme in which the flight of the Holy Family is represented, reached a great popularity among the faithful. In this specific case the author has represented the scene narrated by the apocryphal gospels, since the Virgin Mary can be appreciated, holding the Child next to her chest. Both characters located in the center of the scene, in an elevated position with respect to the rest of the characters, due to the fact that they are mounted on a colt. The image is completed by the figure of an angel that seems to guide the way and Saint Joseph, standing behind the donkey. Both the representation of the ideal of family presented in this work, added to the hallmarks used in the scene, place the work in the pictorial environment of the Andalusian school of the Baroque period.
The seventeenth century marked the arrival of the Baroque in the Andalusian school, with the triumph of naturalism over Mannerist idealism, loose workmanship and many other aesthetic liberties. At this time the school reached its greatest splendor, both for the quality of the works and for the primordial rank of Sevillian Baroque painting. Thus, during the transition to Baroque we find Juan del Castillo, Antonio Mohedano and Francisco Herrera el Viejo, in whose works the rapid brushstroke and the crude realism of the style is already manifested, and Juan de Roelas, introducer of Venetian colorism. In the middle of the century, the period reached its peak, with figures such as Zurbarán, a young Alonso Cano and Velázquez. Finally, in the last third of the century we find Murillo and Valdés Leal, founders in 1660 of an Academy where many of the painters active during the first quarter of the 18th century were trained, such as Meneses Osorio, Sebastián Gómez, Lucas Valdés and others.