SAINT PAUL\'S SCULPTURE. 16TH CENTURY

Spanish school of the 16th century. "Saint Paul". Carved and polychrome wood. Devotional image of a round shape carved in wood, polychrome and gilded, representing the apostle Saint Paul, dressed in a tunic and mantle, with a parted beard, brown hair and a large sword, its main iconographic attribute. In the Middle Ages, numerous corporations were placed under his patronage, due to different aspects of his iconography, life and miracles. However, Saint Paul was never a popular saint, which proves the relative poverty of his iconography. In fact, the role it occupies in art is not proportionate to its importance in the spread of Christianity. In early Christian art his only attributes are a book or a scroll, and in the 13th century his emblem appears, the sword that was the instrument of his martyrdom. Once the clash between tradition and modernity was overcome, and the arrival of the influences of the Italian Renaissance in Spain, the 16th century would be characterized by the great development that religious imagery achieved. Likewise, stylistically there will be a confrontation between the classicist sculptors and those of Flemish affiliation, who were looking for more dramatic and emotional approaches. In this way, the dissemination of the religious image in Spain was based on two fundamental bases. On the one hand, the fact that the Nordic influence constitutes a clearly differentiated alternative to the Italian classicist model; on the other hand, that the emotional sense, which due to its own function the religious image must acquire, will be oriented more to enhance the feeling, to move the faithful, than to follow the rationalist dictates of the Renaissance. So much so, that in Spain the attention to the emotional was more relevant than in the rest of Europe. In this way the image, associated with the word of the preachers, was the most suitable instrument for the indoctrination of the people and for the defense of the canons of the Church, following scholastic and non-humanistic approaches.

· Size: 19x12x39 cms.