Page 56 - The mystery of faith

Their plastic vision of the subject of ‘Ecce Homo’ corresponds exactly to [the words] of our poets: the
juxtaposition of physical beauty and perfection marred by blood and bruises. On the one hand, we find
classical perfection in the figure types and softness of form, the fine technique, and exquisite application
of colour; but on the other, there is a firm sense of realism imposed, and an attention to anecdotal detail,
all employed in the interest of verismo, to better engage the public with the work.12

The brothers evolved their treatment of facial features and expressions from Mannerist models, which
they tempered with a keen sense of natural observation, eventually arriving at a heightened sense of
realism, particularly in their approach to hair, beards and musculature. Nevertheless, they retained
some of the Mannerist mania for expressive curvature, though their compositions show a greater sense
of physical verismo and harmony of form. Two examples from the first group of Ecce Homos
particularly reflect this strong sense of pathos and physical duress: the Ecce Homo in Seville and the
other example in the Church of Santos Justo y Pastor. Both works share the same half-opened mouth

showing the upper teeth, and slightly veiled,
swollen-lidded eyes focused upwards in an
anguished expression, the tortured gaze made more
painfully vivid by the works’ overall intense
chiaroscuro modelling in the forms, not forgetting
the voluminous crowns of thorns, which, in both
works, appear to have been hammered onto the
brow. The brothers apparently softened this strong
chiaroscuro in the Crucifix in Granada Cathedral13
and, possibly in a bid to achieve even greater
realism, eventually settled on a less detailed
approach, as can be seen in the Ecce Homo in the
Convent of the Guardian Angel.

Orozco Díaz’s initial attribution and designation of
these various series of Ecce Homos remains largely
uncontested by later scholars, with the exception of
his attribution of a polychromed wood sculpture of
Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness in Granada
Cathedral (Fig. 3). This work depicts the saint nude
in a contrapposto pose and had previously been
attributed to Alonso Cano by the historian Manuel
Gómez-Moreno Martínez.14 Ten years later, Orozco
Díaz asserted that the work was in fact by the
‘Hermanos’ García,15 and ever since this sculpture
has been attributed alternately either to Cano or to
the brothers, the most recent argument having been
published by José Policarpo Cruz Cabrera, who
gives the work to the brothers.16

Fig. 3

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