Page 122 - The mystery of faith

the Seville painting.11 The Apostles, who witness Christ’s transformation, are, in both paintings, shown
seated or kneeling in attitudes of awe and fear, as related in the Gospels, and in Legot’s work there is
also a sense of their recognition of Christ’s divinity. In both canvases, the composition was divided into
two registers – the celestial and the terrestrial – with, naturally, Christ in the former and the Apostles
relegated to the latter.

Here, the figure of Christ is depicted standing calmly upon clouds, backed by a corona and wearing
only a white tunic. His hands are raised elegantly; the right hand in blessing and the left gesturing
slightly downwards. He is flanked by Moses on the left and Elijah on the right. The composition of the
three standing figures, arranged side by side but with slight variations to scale, alludes to the power
shift from Moses to Christ as the primary figure of veneration, and this use of hieratic scale harkens
back to the medieval traditions of Byzantine and Greek icons, or even to the religious subjects painted
by Gentile Bellini. Decades after this relief was made, Martínez Montañés arranged these same three
figures in a similar manner in an altarpiece in Jerez, with the slight variation that one of the prophets
is actually kneeling upon the clouds. In the lower register, Adán placed the figures of Saint Peter,
kneeling on the left, with Saint James, also kneeling, and Saint John standing behind in a scenographic
arrangement that frames the scene. All the Apostles have their faces raised to the clouds in expressions
and gestures of astonishment: for example, the hand pressed to Saint Peter’s chest, Saint James’s raised
hands, and so on. The composition of the Apostle figures does not follow traditional models for their
inclusion in this subject. Instead they appear more in keeping with similar figures in an Ascension or
an Assumption of the Virgin, although Adán could also have adapted them from the multitude of
figures in the lower register of Raphael’s work, such as the bald man in the foreground, or the imploring
woman and man in the lower foreground pointing up to Christ. Although there are evident technical
differences in the carving between Adán’s relief and the one by Montañés, such as the greater focus on
volume and overall refinement in the present work, the two artists used a common source of inspiration
since both reliefs include a partial tree trunk on the left that disappears into the clouds.

While we have ample documentation regarding the life of this sculptor, only recently has a work come
to light and scholarly assessment can now enable us to begin to define his style. The Museo de Bellas
Artes in Seville conserves the relief of the Baptism of Christ that Adán made for the Dueñas Convent
(Fig. 4). This relief corresponds in form and subject to the description in the commissioning contract,
as does the relief’s provenance. In the work the faces of the Baptist and Christ share the same
physiognomy, with slightly lowered eyes, and the hair and beards are given the same smooth, compact
treatment, with the characteristically pointed beards that can also be seen here in the exhibited work in
the faces of Christ, Saint John and Saint James. The two reliefs also show the same approach to
depicting grey-bearded patriarch figures, such as God the Father in the Baptist relief and Moses in our
relief. Equally, there is a strong similarity in the treatment of drapery. In both reliefs this is carefully
arranged in narrow, almost calligraphic folds. Another technical similarity is the smooth modelling of
the clouds in both reliefs, although those in the Seville relief are so stylized and incidental they recall
the relief in Jerez, which is known to be a late work executed when the sculptor was quite old and
dependent on excessive workshop participation to complete his commissions.

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