Alonso Cano

ALONSO CANO ALONSO CANO (Granada, 1601 - 1667).
"Santo Domingo de Guzmán", c. 1665.
Ink on paper.
Presents restorations.
Provenance: Private Collection Madrid, Vindel Collection, Collection of Felix Boix.
Signed lower left corner
Measurements: 15 x 12 cm.
The scene, impregnated with spirituality, shows Saint Dominic in a solemn gesture of blessing, addressing a woman kneeling at his feet. The female figure, humble and devout, tenderly holds a child in her arms, symbolizing a supplication or act of surrender. The setting, located at the doors of a church, is suggested by a sober architecture that frames the composition, adding a sacred context. Cano's precision in the strokes, especially in the folds of the vestments and the serene features of the protagonists, conveys an atmosphere of recollection and grace.
Aesthetically, the work has similarities with a set of drawings by the artist dedicated to Santo Domingo, which are in the collection of the Prado Museum. In fact, the museum itself points out that these drawings were conceived "for the series of Santo Domingo, proposed by Cano for the convent of Santa Cruz la Real in Granada and that, finally, Antonio del Castillo, who apparently was also the author of the copies of these same drawings, painted them for his compositions. Palomino pointed out with respect to the mentioned series And in this time he made all the drawings, for the paintings of the cloister of the Royal Convent of Santa Cruz, Order of Preachers, of the Life of its Glorious Patriarch, which I have in my possession. But the paintings in the said cloister were executed by the drawings of cano a guy from the Castle and they are very deteriorated from time. This passage has allowed us to attribute to Cano fifteen drawings of Dominican themes; all of them present the arched upper part and similar dimensions, although not exact. In addition, there are direct copies of Cano's drawings, made by another hand, which are sometimes the testimony of compositions whose autograph drawing has been lost. Taken together, these two groups of drawings reveal the scope of the iconographic program designed by Cano to adorn the main cloister of the convent of Santa Cruz la Real. The commissioning of these drawings must have been very important to Cano, since the convent of Santa Cruz la Real, founded by Ferdinand and Isabella to commemorate the 1492 victory over the Muslim rulers of Granada, was one of the most prestigious religious centers in Andalusia."
Alonso Cano was considered one of the most important Baroque artists in Spain. Painter, sculptor and architect, being of great importance his contribution to the three disciplines, which is why today he is considered one of the most influential artists of the Spanish Baroque. He was also the initiator of the Granada school of painting and sculpture, and his disciples included Juan de Sevilla, Pedro Atanasio Bocanegra, José Risueño, Pedro de Mena and José de Mora. Son of an important assembler of altarpieces and possibly also a draftsman, Alonso Cano was initiated in architectural drawing and imagery by his father, with whom he collaborated from a very young age. In 1614 or 1615 he moved with his family to Seville, where he soon joined the painting workshop of Francisco Pacheco, by then the most prestigious master of the city, in fact Velázquez's master, with whom Cano became a close friend. As a sculptor, it is traditionally considered that he must have trained with Juan Martínez Montañés, although there is no documentary evidence of this. In 1624 he signed his first known painting, and two years later he obtained the title of master painter. In 1638 he moved to Madrid, and was soon appointed chamber painter and drawing teacher of Prince Baltasar Carlos. There he became acquainted with the royal collections, which will lead his language to evolve from its early Caravaggism to a more colorful and elegant language, sometimes related to Van Dyck. However, in 1644 he was accused of murdering his wife, which led him to take refuge in Valencia. A year later he returned to Madrid, and in 1652 he returned definitively to Granada, where he obtained a position in the cathedral thanks to the influence of Philip IV. There he completed the decoration of the main chapel and became the main master of the cathedral. Works by Alonso Cano are currently kept in the Prado Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Louvre in Paris, the Metropolitan in New York, the J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles and the Art Institute of Chicago, among other important collections in Spain and abroad.