Page 35 - The mystery of faith

Church effectively united to ensure that Spanish society conformed to the established church doctrine,
and kept a sharp lookout for any evidence of spiritual reform or alternative creeds. Some artists were
so deeply committed to Catholic ideology that they went far beyond what the Church expected of them,
not only as artists, but as Catholics. The sculptor Pedro de Mena had five children, all of which took
religious orders: three became Cistercians, one a Jesuit, while the last became the canon of the Royal
Chapel in Granada. This intense sense of commitment is also reflected in the way that certain artists set
about their tasks. For example, before embarking on the production of an image of Christ or the Virgin,
La Roldana would prepare herself as if she were to undergo a religious ritual and, as Palomino
recounts, ‘was so filled with compassion and reverence that she could not sculpt the figures without
shedding tears’.11 The relationship between the sculpting of a divine image and its evocation of divinity,
between art and spirituality, is wholly interdependent in Spanish sculpture during the sixteenth century
and continues to be so throughout the eighteenth century. Just as the Lord God Almighty created man
in his own image and likeness, modelling him from clay and breathing life into his creation, artists have
continued to model, sculpt, carve and cast potent images of the divine from wood, ivory, stone, marble,
clay, or metals, to illustrate religious dogma, to express the spirituality of the Church, and to serve as
the locus for the presence of the Divine on earth. Through the presence and appreciation of these
sculpted images the faithful may achieve some sense of focus and clarity when pondering the eternal
mystery of mankind’s relationship to their God.

JOSE LUIS ROMERO TORRES

1 HESIOD, Works and Days, ll. 60–68 and ll. 69–82, included veneration. Certainly this is not the full adoration in
in Hesiod: The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, H. G. accordance with our faith, which is properly paid only to the
EVELYN-WHITE (trans.), (rev. ed.) 1914 (Loeb Classical divine nature, but it resembles that given to the figure of the
Library no. 57). In many ways this myth is akin to the story honoured and life-giving cross, and also to the holy books of
of Paradise Lost or The Fall in the Bible. the Gospels and to other sacred objects’ (Definition of the
Second Council of Nicaea).
2 The seventh Ecumenical Council, the Second Council of
Nicaea in 787, which rejected iconoclasm and restored the 3 PAUSANIUS, Description of Greece (5.11.9), R. WETCHERLEY
veneration of icons in the churches, was not part of the (ed.), Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press,
tradition received by the Reformation. Lutherans, however, Cambridge (MA) 1935.
rejected the iconoclasm of the sixteenth century, and
affirmed the distinction between adoration due to the Triune 4 For a more detailed discussion of Michelangelo, the Moses
God alone and all other forms of veneration. Through and the Neoplatonic notion that the artist must liberate
historical research this council has become better known. ideal form from base matter, see J. J. REICH and L. S.
Nevertheless it does not have the same significance for CUNNINGHAM, Culture and Values: A Survey of the
Lutherans as it does for the Orthodox. Yet, Lutherans and Humanities, Rinehart and Winston, Holt 2005, vol. II, pp.
Orthodox are in agreement that the Second Council of 47–48.
Nicaea confirms the Christological teaching of the earlier
councils and in setting forth the role of images (icons) in the 5 A. PALOMINO, Las Vidas de los pintores y estatuarios
lives of the faithful reaffirms the reality of the incarnation of españoles, Alianza Editorial, Madrid 1986, p. 124.
the eternal Word of God, when it states: ‘The more
frequently, Christ, Mary, the mother of God, and the saints 6 Ibid., p. 124.
are seen, the more are those who see them drawn to
remember and long for those who serve as models, and to 7 Ibid., p. 348.
pay these icons the tribute of salutation and respectful
8 Ibid., p. 349.

9 Ibid., p. 349.

10 Ibid., p. 255.

11 Ibid., p. 349.

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