16th Century Spanish School. "saint Paul". Carved And Polychrome Wood.

Spanish school, 16th century. "Saint Paul." Carved and polychrome wood.
Devotional image in carved, polychrome, and gilded wood, depicting the apostle Saint Paul, dressed in a tunic and cloak, with a parted beard, brown hair, and a large sword, his main iconographic attribute. During the Middle Ages, numerous guilds were placed under his patronage, due to different aspects of his iconography, his life, and his miracles. However, Saint Paul was never a popular saint, which demonstrates the relative poverty of his iconography. Indeed, the place he occupies in art is not proportional to his 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 had been overcome, with the arrival in Spain of the influences of the Italian Renaissance, the entire 16th century was characterized by the great development of religious imagery. Likewise, on a stylistic level, there was a confrontation between classical sculptors and those of Flemish origin, who sought more dramatic and emotional approaches. Thus, the diffusion of religious images in Spain was based on two fundamental bases. On the one hand, the fact that the Nordic influence constituted a clearly differentiated alternative to the Italian classicist model; on the other, the emotional meaning, which the religious image had to acquire due to its proper function, was more oriented towards the valorization of feeling, towards the emotion of the faithful, than towards following the rationalist dictates of the Renaissance. So much so that in Spain, the attention paid to the emotional had a greater character than in the rest of Europe. Thus, the image, associated with the words of the preachers, was the most appropriate instrument for the indoctrination of the people and the defense of the canons of the Church, according to scholastic and not humanist approaches. -
Dimensions: 19x12x39 cms