Flemish school; first half of the 17th century.

Flemish school; first half of the 17th century.
"Calvary".
Oil on oak panel. Cradled.
It presents faults in the pictorial surface and opening in the board.
Measurements: 60 x 45 cm.
The artist of the present composition offers us a scene of Calvary that summarizes the Passion of Christ. We see Christ on the cross with the wound in his side open and behind him Gestas and Dimas representing the good and the bad thief. At the foot of the cross, we see Mary Magdalene kneeling and clinging to the cross. In the right foreground is the Virgin Mary being held by the Holy Women (Mary Salome and Mary of Cleophas).
At a formal level, it is worth noting how it is a work in which the color, attenuated and with a contrasting palette, is subordinated to the drawing, the real protagonist of the composition.by the technical characteristics, such as the modeling of the forms, the tones used, the type of composition, and even the aesthetic details used in the treatment of the fabrics that make up the scene, this work can be inscribed within the Flemish Baroque school. It shows the Crucifixion with the Virgin and St. John at the feet, an iconographic form evolved from the original Byzantine Déesis, which represented Christ in Majesty accompanied by Mary and St. John the Baptist. In Western art, the representation of Christ on the cross will be preferred, as a narrative scene, and the figure of St. John the Baptist will be replaced by that of John the Evangelist. Another significant change, which seeks greater naturalism, is that while in the Byzantine model both the Virgin and St. John have their faces raised or oriented towards Christ, with their hands in a position of supplication on behalf of humanity, here they are shown mourning in the classical manner, with a restrained expressiveness.