Spanish school of the first half of the 18th century.
"Christ with crown of thorns".
Oil on canvas.
It presents repainting and old restorations.
Measurements: 52 x 41 cm, 63 x 53 cm (frame).
This image shows Christ crowned with thorns alluding to the cycle of the passion and crucifixion. This approach to the subject is a faithful reflection of an expression that springs from the people and the deepest feelings they harbour. With the economy of the state in ruins, the nobility in decline and the clergy heavily taxed, it was the monasteries, parishes and confraternities of clerics and laymen who encouraged the development of the arts, and the works were sometimes financed by popular subscription. Painting was thus obliged to express the prevailing ideals in these environments, which were none other than religious ones, at a time when Counter-Reformation doctrine demanded a realistic language from art so that the faithful could understand and identify with what was represented, and an expression endowed with an intense emotional content in order to increase the fervour and devotion of the people. Religious themes were therefore the main subject matter of Spanish painting of this period, which in the early decades of the century focused primarily on capturing the natural world and gradually intensified throughout the century on expressive values through movement and a variety of gestures, the use of light and the depiction of moods and feelings.