Granada School of the 18th century

Granada School of the 18th century.
"Virgin of the Anguish.
Oil on canvas.
Measurements: 80 x 60 cm; 90 x 62 cm (frame).

This oil painting is a clear testimony of the phenomenon of sacralization and devotional fervor characteristic of the Granada school of the 18th century. The composition presents the Virgen de las Angustias offering the recumbent body of Christ on the altar, framed by the Vera Crux from which hangs a symbolic shroud. It is necessary to differentiate this iconography from the conventional Pietà; while the latter captures the intimate moment of the descent, the Granada version acquires a liturgical and public dimension, presenting the Son as a Eucharistic sacrifice. This typology is inscribed in the boom of the iconographic programs of the Hispanic Baroque, which expanded through ambitious pictorial series and engravings destined both for ecclesiastical magnificence and private piety.

The 17th 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.