Castilian school; second third of the XVI century.

Castilian school; second third of the sixteenth century.
"Adoration of the shepherds".
Carved wood, gilded and polychrome.
It presents faults and wear.
Measurements: 94 x 82 x 23 cm.
This relief carved in wood belongs to the Castilian school of the 16th century and represents a scene of the Nativity. The composition is structured with a great quantity of figures sculpted with meticulous detail and dressed with clothes that reflect the style of the time.
In the center, the Virgin Mary is kneeling and dressed in a golden robe, extending her hands towards the Child Jesus, who rests in a manger wrapped in cloths. St. Joseph is standing beside her, with a serene expression and a gesture of blessing.
The shepherds, in humble clothing and some kneeling in adoration, show expressions of awe and devotion. Behind them, more figures appear with richly decorated clothing, probably representing the Magi or benefactors of the scene. The presence of the ox and the donkey next to the manger reinforce the traditional iconography of the birth of Christ.
In the upper part, an angel surrounded by clouds and a floating scroll seems to announce the divine event. The relief shows traces of polychrome and gilding, common techniques in Castilian sacred art of the Renaissance. Its variegated composition and the detailed treatment of the faces and vestments reflect the mastery of the Castilian sculptural school of the time.

Spain is, at the beginning of the 16th century, the European nation best prepared to receive the new humanist concepts of life and art due to its spiritual, political and economic conditions, although from the point of view of plastic forms, its adaptation of those introduced by Italy was slower due to the need to learn the new techniques and to change the taste of the clientele. Sculpture reflects perhaps better than other artistic fields this eagerness to return to the classical Greco-Roman world that exalts in its nudes the individuality of man, creating a new style whose vitality surpasses the mere copy. Soon the anatomy, the movement of the figures, the compositions with a sense of perspective and balance, the naturalistic play of the folds, the classical attitudes of the figures began to be valued; but the strong Gothic tradition maintains the expressiveness as a vehicle of the deep spiritualistic sense that informs our best Renaissance sculptures. This strong and healthy tradition favors the continuity of religious sculpture in polychrome wood that accepts the formal beauty offered by Italian Renaissance art with a sense of balance that avoids its predominance over the immaterial content that animates the forms. In the first years of the century, Italian works arrived in our lands and some of our sculptors went to Italy, where they learned first hand the new norms in the most progressive centers of Italian art, whether in Florence or Rome, and even in Naples. Upon their return, the best of them, such as Berruguete, Diego de Siloe and Ordóñez, revolutionized Spanish sculpture through Castilian sculpture, even advancing the new mannerist, intellectualized and abstract derivation of the Italian Cinquecento, almost at the same time as it was produced in Italy.