Page 89 - The mystery of faith

remain speculation. Nevertheless, in his brief career, he demonstrated a fully realized artistic style,
which, in its capacity to express a heightened sense of realism, surpassed even that of his master.

Cano’s sculptures from this period include the Santa Teresa (Seville, Convent of Buen Suceso – Padres
Carmelitas); San Pedro, San Pablo and the Virgen de la Oliva (Lebrija, the Church of Nuestra Señora
de la Oliva); the seated San Juan Evangelista (Valladollid, Museo Nacional de Escultura); and the
Inmaculada from the main altar in the parish church of La Campana (Seville). Cano was equally able
to demonstrate his ability in producing monumental sculptures of great quality (San Pedro and San
Pablo), as well as smaller works, such as the aforementioned Inmaculada. His technique employed an
expressive use of foreshortening, seen particularly in seated figures, such as San Juan Evangelista and
the Santiago, formerly from the old altarpiece of the parish church of San Juan de la Palma in Seville
(Valladolid, Museo Nacional de Escultura).1

The new (or, at least, largely restored) polychromy of the Inmaculada in the parish church of La
Campana (Fig. 1) outside Seville prevents any real appreciation of the work’s original quality, with the
result that when it was included in a recent exhibition, the work met
with mixed criticism.2 This smaller scale work (58 centimetres)
remains in situ, placed in the niche for which it was carved, above
the tabernacle in an altarpiece that was also designed by Cano.
Cano’s slow progress in the execution of this commission
(apparently stalled due to lack of church funding) is well
documented and the work apparently stretched over several years.
This delay was in no way due to any dilatoriness on Cano’s part, nor
on the part of Miguel Cano and the brothers Felipe and Francisco
Dionisio de Ribas, who also worked on the project. Work began in
1629 and three years later Cano had delivered the tabernacle and the
small Inmaculada. By 1638 when Cano had left for Madrid, he had
only begun work on the first upper level of the retablo. In this first
phase of the altarpiece, one may see that Cano has already begun to
distance himself from the Sevillian prototypes of his youth, and,
instead, he appears to be either working towards a wholly new style,
or one influenced by Martínez Montañés.

The La Campana Virgin stands holding her hands slightly separated
in a gesture that lacks the drama usually expected in the standard
iconography for an Asunción, but still communicates the Virgin’s
arrested, almost expectant attitude and attracts the viewer’s
attention. Her white tunic with gilded and floral decoration covers
her feet, which rest on top of three seraphim, of which the wings of
the central seraph extend straight forward, exactly as those in the
present Inmaculada exhibited here, which is a fully autograph work

Fig. 1

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