SEARCH AN ARTICLE
FRANÇAIS I ENGLISH
Close
NAME
SURNAME
EMAIL
EXHIBITION
The Sacred made real
■ MORE FEATURES
from the listing EXHIBITION
■ ALSO READ
EXHIBITION Pedro Almodovar
EXHIBITION Christian Lacroix Fashion Stories
EXHIBITION Pilar Albarracin A mind of her own
FASHION CLOSE UP José Castro
EXHIBITION Angus Mc Bean - Portraits
 

‘The Sacred Made Real’ presents a landmark reappraisal of religious art from the Spanish Golden Age with works created to shock the senses and stir the soul.

Paintings, including masterpieces by Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán, are displayed for the very first time alongside Spain’s remarkable polychrome wooden sculptures.

Inspiring devotion

The religious artists of 17th-century Spain pursued a quest for realism with uncompromising zeal and genius, creating works to inspire devotion among believers.
By displaying works side by side, this exhibition explores the intense dialogue between the arts of sculpture and painting, revealing that they were intricately linked and interdependent.

Hyperrealism

Sculptors often went to extraordinary lengths to achieve greater realism, introducing glass eyes and tears, as well as ivory teeth and human hair to their sculptures. The separate skill of polychroming, performed by specially trained painters, added to the effect with remarkable flesh tones.

‘The Sacred Made Real’ offers the opportunity to see an art form rarely seen outside Spain, featuring masters of polychrome sculpture, including Pedro de Mena, Juan Martínez Montañés and Gregorio Fernández. At the same time, it demonstrates that the painters of the Spanish Golden Age were able to achieve the same disconcerting realism on canvas.



MANY THANKS TO

to Karen Bosomworth and Natalia Yanez-Stiel

PHOTOS

Gregorio Fernández (about 1576–1636)
Dead Christ (detail), 1625–30
© Photo Imagen M.A.S. Courtesy of Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. On long loan to the Museo Nacional Colegio de San Gregorio, Valladolid
Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664)
Saint Francis in Meditation, 1635–9
© The National Gallery, London
Diego Velázquez (1599–1660)
The Venerable Mother Jerónima de la Fuente, 1620
© Private collection. Photo 2009 Gonzalo de la Serna
Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664)
Saint Serapion, 1628
© Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT. The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund (1951.40)



INFOS

The National Gallery

Trafalgar Square

London, WC2,

UK



www.nationalgallery.org.uk