Spanish school of the second half of the seventeenth... Lot n° 4

Spanish school of the second half of the seventeenth century. "The Assumption of the Virgin". Oil on canvas. Relined. Needs restoration and cleaning. Measurements: 215 x 167 cm; 230 x 184 cm (frame). This majestic canvas shows the Assumption of the Virgin, taken body and soul to Heaven, in a triumphal and scenographic way. Behind her opens the Glory, represented by the golden divine light, an elaborate break in whose margins we see a multitude of angels in different positions, some looking to the earth and others upwards. On the earthly plane, clearly differentiated from the celestial by the line of clouds, the characters are accumulated around the open tomb of the Virgin. They are the apostles who, having witnessed Mary's death, are amazed at her Assumption. Some of them are represented on one side, closing a circular composition defined around the tomb, classical and orderly despite the apparent crowding of the characters in favor of the theatricality and, above all, the dynamism of the scene. Most of the characters appear looking at the empty tomb, pointing to it with open hands, expressing both surprise and veneration, an aspect of skillful narrative. We see how Mary does not ascend to heaven by her own means, like Christ, but is raised to Paradise by the angels. As is customary in Western art, the artist depicts her bodily Assumption outside the tomb where the apostles had buried her. Formally the work fits within the production of the Spanish school of the first half of the seventeenth century. The artist, a connoisseur of the Romanist trend, offers us a monumental work of powerful anatomies, worked from a reduced palette of colors. The artist has been able to attenuate the academic rigidity of the models with details of greater naturalism, with delicate intimate nuances and achieved lighting effects.