Page 34 - The mystery of faith

and that, in contemplating it, the viewer had the feeling of being in the presence of the divine. He also
noted that Luis Antonio de los Arcos kept the sculpture ‘in an austere room, placed upon a dresser and
covered with a drape’, and went on to record his stupor upon seeing the piece, and ‘that it seemed
irreverent not to fall upon one’s knees because it seemed that [he] was viewing Christ himself, in
person’.8 Palomino goes on to say that for a while he sat with the widower admiring the piece, but
could not stay for long because ‘I was at once lost for words, so great was my sense of respect and
reverence in its presence. As I have said this was not only because of the expressiveness of the head but
also because of the execution of the hands and feet which were all divinely executed, right down to the
details of drops of blood running down the flesh which appeared entirely real and natural’.9 From
Palomino’s description, therefore, we can grasp how La Roldana again achieved a sculpture that
fulfilled not only the iconographic demands of the religious authorities, but also the Tridentine proviso
that the work should personally inspire the faithful.

???

POOR QUALITY RESULTS IN A REJECTION OF RELIGIOUS IMAGERY

T he Council of Trent constituted a meeting between the foremost theologians of the day and high-
ranking representatives of the Catholic Church in order to counter the reformist trends that had
emerged in central Europe and had expanded throughout the west. Among the guidelines that were to
affect art was a defence of the concept of ‘decorum’. Although this had always been a required objective
in the creation of Christian art, it was to gain far greater impetus after the Council. Artists were now
required to ally the formal perfection and sense of decorum achieved in their sculptures with the natural
spiritual predisposition of the faithful, when absorbed in prayer. Often, when intently focused upon
small but exquisitely made sculptures, this level of meditation could lead to rather disconcerting
behaviour, as in an incident involving the greatest of all Andalusian artists, Alonso Cano, upon his
death bed. During the very last days of his life, Cano, a renowned painter, sculptor and architect, was
handed by an attendant priest a crucifix that ‘was of poor quality’. Despite his very poor state of health
the artist ordered that the artefact be removed with a violence that shocked the priest in its irreverence.
The priest asked: ‘My son, what ails you?’, and tried to convince the artist that the contemplation of
this image of Christ on the Cross was essential to his redemption and future salvation. To which Cano
replied: ‘Yes father, I do believe thus, but have you not considered that in holding a crucifix as badly
made as this the devil might instead come for me?’ Finally, Cano conceded to hold a plain unadorned
crucifix, because, as he explained: ‘With faith I revere and venerate Him, but I contemplate Him only
as I imagine Him to be’.10 Cano preferred to contemplate Christ’s image as it existed in his mind’s eye,
rather than look upon any figurative representation of the Saviour if it were of inferior quality.

???

THE ARTIST AND HIS RELATIONSHIP TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH

While Spanish sculptors occasionally produced secular subjects (largely commissioned by private
patrons), throughout the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods Spanish sculpture was almost
exclusively religious in subject. Equally, being somewhat codependent, the Spanish monarchy and the

34