Christ at the Column

Alonso Cano was one of the most versatile artists of Spain's golden age, a painter who was also a sculptor and an architect, and it tells in a devotional image like this. Christ bound to the column, waiting to be scourged, was a subject Spanish worshippers were meant to stand before and feel, not simply admire. Around 1643 Cano was working in Madrid, drawn into the orbit of the royal court, though he had trained in Seville and would end his life back home in Granada as a cathedral cleric. His figures often carry the smooth, carved solidity of a sculptor's eye, the body modelled as if it could step out of the panel. The quiet restraint here, one suffering figure and little else, is how Spanish painters of his generation asked you to pray.