Granada School; end of the XVII century.

Granada School; late seventeenth century.
"Franciscan Saint".
Carved and polychrome wood.
Measurements: 50 x 42 x 20 cm.
Devotional image made of carved and polychrome wood, a feature that gives great veracity to the sculpture. It is the representation of a saint dressed in a Franciscan habit kneeling on a stone that serves as a base and raising his hands in an attitude of prayer to which is added the gesture of the face. The delicate work of the flesh tones of the figure of blushing cheeks stands out, as well as the tremendously achieved clothing, especially in the lower central area where a knot is tied that originates a game of folds. The detailed work of the rope's rope, perfectly defined, denotes a realistic work, inscribed in the aesthetics of the most natural baroque. The piece retains a careful polychrome, as already mentioned, especially in the face, thus increasing the serene, expressive gesture, charged with a contained tension.
Regarding the Granada school, when Alonso Cano returned to Granada in 1652, he attracted all the artists to him. It could almost be said that the features that characterize the school are the features of his style. Thus, in all of them, the search for the ideal and elegant in the types, the escape from realism and the genre scene, paying little attention to portraiture and almost no attention to still life. Rich color intonations abound in all of them, with specific palette preferences, such as the use of asphalt, and also the taste for Flemish painting, which would have been promoted by Pedro de Moya, who is said to have traveled to Flanders and England. Cano's types are repeated by all, even if they are nuanced and develop other features pointed out in his art. So do Bocanegra, Juan de Sevilla or, in Malaga, Juan Niño de Guevara.