FERNÁNDEZ, Gregorio
(b. ca. 1576, d. 1636, Valladolid)

Pietá

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Polychromed wood
San Martin, Valladolid

Gregorio Fernandez (or Hernandez) is cited for the first time in 1605, as a sculptor in Valladolid; he died in that city in 1636. Fernandez, one of the masters of the Castilian school, was an independent genius who owed nothing to Italian influence. He excelled in the representation of the Christian drama - the Passion - of which he emphasized the physical aspects. This mysticism, profound and popular, this direct association with the divine suffering, as well as the use of broken lines and deeply cut, angular folds, marks a return to the Gothic spirit. The art of Fernandez had considerable influence on popular 17th-century Castilian sculpture.