The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600-1700

Brilliant exhibition at the National Gallery looking at the dialogue between painting and sculpture in Spain at this period.

The objects in the exhibition were amazing and a real discovery for me. I know nothing about polychrome sculpture and was bowled over at how realistic and beautiful they were. The two standing figures of Saint Francis Borgia and Saint Ignatius Loyola were so lifelike that they felt like real people in the room with you. It was lovely that many of the works were not in glass cases but shared the space with the viewer.

The paintings were stunning too, in particular the two pictures of St Francis by Zurbaran.

But the exhibition was actually better than the sum of its parts. The objects were given space to breathe and to work off each other. The lighting was wonderful with the sculpture casting shadows against the walls. A friend also noticed that were there was an obvious light source in a painting then the lighting of it came from that place.

I haven’t done the tape tour yet but I gather a piece of music was also commissioned to go with the exhibition.

All in all a super exhibition which managed to create the right spiritual dimension to put the items in a religious as well as an art historic context.

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