Spanish school; early 17th century.

Spanish school; beginning of the XVII century.
"San Marcos".
Oil on panel. Cradled.
Measurements: 80 x 53 cm; 89 x 68 cm (frame).
Devotional painting depicting St. Mark as an evangelist, dressed in tunic is shown to the viewer writing a large book that holds before him, his eyes down to the scriptures and thoughtful is oblivious to the viewer's gaze. Behind him, in the background, is the lion typical of his iconography. It is a contemplative and didactic image, clearly counter-reformist and therefore also worked with naturalism and with a marked monumental character.
Saint Mark the Evangelist is traditionally considered the author of the Gospel that bears his name, and the founder and first bishop of the Church of Alexandria. He is also usually identified with John, called Mark, a character who appears several times in the "Acts of the Apostles". St. Mark was not a direct disciple of Jesus, so he based his Gospel account, according to tradition, on the teachings of Peter. This Saint is associated with the lion because his Gospel begins speaking of the desert, and precisely this animal was considered the king of the desert. Furthermore, at the beginning of his account, Mark speaks of the Jordan River, around which lived various wild animals, the lion among them. It is also said that Mark is the lion because his Gospel begins by speaking of John the Baptist as "Voice crying in the wilderness", a voice that would be like that of the lion.
Spanish Baroque painting is one of the most authentic and personal examples of our art, because its conception and its form of expression arose from the people and the deepest feelings that nestled in it. With the economy of the State broken, the nobility in decline and the high clergy burdened with heavy taxes, it was the monasteries, the parishes and the confraternities of clerics and laymen who promoted its development, the works sometimes being financed by popular subscription. Painting was thus forced to capture the prevailing ideals in these environments, which were none other than religious ones, at a time when the Counter-Reformation doctrine demanded from art a realistic language so that the faithful would understand and identify with what was represented, and an expression endowed with an intense emotional content to increase the fervor and devotion of the people. The religious subject is, therefore, the preferred theme of Spanish sculpture of this period, which in the first decades of the century began with a priority interest in capturing the natural, to progressively intensify throughout the century the expression of expressive values.