Spanish school; first half of the 17th century.

Spanish school; first half of the XVII century.
"Santo Dominico".
Oil on canvas.
Measurements: 102 x 78 cm; 120 x 97 cm (frame).
Devotional painting, in which the artist has collected a male portrait. The figure is inscribed in an interior made up of dark tones, where there is no other element that distorts the viewer's view, with respect to the main figure, except for the corner of a table that accommodates a large number of volumes of books. In addition, due to the dimensions and the monumentality conferred by the artist, the figure occupies a large part of the pictorial surface. The artist painted a male portrait without any other identifying attributes, although the clothing indicates that he is a Dominican saint. Spanish Baroque painting is one of the most authentic and personal examples of our art, because its conception and 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, and the works were sometimes 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.