Page 36 - The mystery of faith

A LAYMAN’S VADE MECUM TO CREATING
A SPANISH POLYCHROME SCULPTURE

B oth Suzanne Stratton and Jose Luis Romero Torres have described in their preceding essays
how Spanish sculptors created sacred imágenes through a multilayered process that usually
involved several different craftsmen with specific skills. While each of these guild-registered
artisans occupied a particular place within a rigid artistic hierarchy they nevertheless shared a
common goal: to produce works which could embody the mystery of faith. In an effort to partially
illustrate the complex techniques that went into the creation of Spanish Baroque polychrome
sculptures, we will examine two of the objects exhibited here: the figure of Saint Benito of Palermo by
José Montes de Oca (cat. no. 18) and the Saint Anthony of Padua by Pedro de Mena (cat. no. 8).1

The approximately half life-sized, polychromed wood sculpture of Saint Benito of Palermo was both
carved and polychromed by the Seville sculptor José Montes de Oca between 1743 and 1745. The
overall composition of the work is probably wholly original as Montes de Oca was not known for
faithfully following models,2 though it is possible that he may have worked out the pose and
composition of the drapery by initially creating a clay boceto, or model. The subtle variations in line,
if not volume, in the long sleeves of the cassock, for example, and the general illusion of weightlessness
throughout the work, strongly indicate that the sculptor used a plastic model. Montes de Oca
apparently began by carving the entire body from a single log of resinous wood, most likely Spanish
cedar (Fig. 1). The sculptor worked the column of wood asymmetrically (the dark central mass of
heartwood is completely visible on the underside of the oval base at the lower left. Since it is probable
the sculpture was not made to be carried in one of the Holy Week pasos, or processionals, and was
probably made to be displayed in a niche, Montes de Oca did not hollow the block to reduce the weight
of his finished sculpture. Consequently, small parallel curves of cracking are visible on the back of the
sculpture where the work would have been most vulnerable to dampness and changes in temperature
in its original setting and where it was not wholly protected by priming or polychromy. There is also
strong evidence that the artist took an adze to the lower back of the sculpture, after it had been
completed, most likely to make it fit within its intended niche.

Montes de Oca carved the saint’s high cowl and short cope covering the lower neck and shoulders in
smooth, even forms with no folds. The torso, covered by a simple cassock that extends in complex and
varied channel folds to the feet, is truncated at the upper arms. The feet (just visible) and the base are
both integral. An extra section of wood was attached to the main column on the front and carved as a
long oval to extend the bent left knee of the figure and add three-dimensionality to the pose.

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