Andres Perez

ANDRÉS PÉREZ (Seville, 1660- 1727).
"Infant Jesus with a border of flowers".
Oil on canvas.
Relined.
With label of the Sala Parés de Barcelona on the back.
It presents lack of polychrome in the frame.
Measurements: 110 x 82 cm; 121 x 94 cm (frame).

We are in front of a painting of quality in which formal and compositional elements characteristic of the XVIIth century of the hand of Andrés Pérez converge: the floral garland that welcomes the devotional scene has been solved extracting the just qualities of the sensual corollas. As for the central scene, the choir of angels accompanying the Infant Jesus present accomplished foreshortenings and dynamize their bodies in a variety of postures. The plastic richness is allied with the symbolic richness of the emblems that each figure carries: the instruments of the Passion (nails, hammer, ladder...), the cloth of Veronica... all of them symbols of the Way of the Cross, as is the cross that Jesus holds. With his other hand, Christ raises a bronze chalice with a sacred host that shines with inner light, while he places his bare feet on an orb surrounded by a serpent, a demonic symbol. The Child Jesus, of adolescent age, wears long curly hair and raises his gaze towards the Holy Spirit, who bursts into the sky incarnated as a white dove. Around him float seraphim with candid faces. The whole, full of characters in action, nevertheless preserves a studied compositional order through a symmetrical distribution, starting from the central axis occupied by Christ and the Holy Spirit. Cold and warm shades are boldly combined. The light contours and modulates the forms, sculpting the tender bodies with softness, giving them volume and movement.

There is little information about the biography of the painter Andrés Pérez, son of painter Francisco Pérez de Pineda, of whom he was probably a disciple. According to Cean, despite the Murillo influence of the time, Andres Perez has its own style characteristics, such as a very precise drawing, characters of gentle expressiveness, and large scenarios in which reminiscent of architectural environments or landscape perspectives. The two most relevant works known of this painter are kept in the Museum of Fine Arts of Seville, having been attributed to Ortega and Lucas Valdés. His works have a markedly Eucharistic symbolism, perhaps because of the commissions for chapels.