Viceregal school; Nueva Granada Peru, 18th century. "San Miguel Arcangel". Oil on canvas. Presents repaints and holes on canvas.

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Old Masters

By Setdart Auction House

Jun 30, 2021

Set Reminder 2021-06-30 08:30:00 2021-06-30 08:30:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Old Masters https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/setdart-auction-house/old-masters-7134
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• Lot Description
  Viceregal school; Nueva Granada Peru, 18th century. "San Miguel Arcangel". Oil on canvas. Presents repaints and holes on canvas. Measures: 161 x 105 cm. With a completely elongated canon, the figure of St. Michael the Archangel is arranged over the entire pictorial surface. His distortion of the body proportions, added to the synthetic features of various details, such as the sword or the face, which is composed of lines tending to geometrization, are characteristics that invite the viewer to rethink the role of the Archangel Michael, in this case away from the drama of the battle. He seems to simply show his attributes to the viewer, holding his sword aloft and holding his bow with the legend "Who as God". The Archangels are the highest level of the Third Order in the angelic hierarchies, and are the only ones among them who possess names. As for the West, the Lateran Council (746) limited the number of archangels to worship to three (Michael, Gabriel and Raphael), a circumstance that changed after the discovery in 1516 of a fresco in the church of San Angelo of the Carmelite order in Palermo in which the Trinity appeared with the seven archangels, which, moreover, would be reproduced (sometimes with variations) by numerous engravings, thus extending the iconography. Thus, from this moment, the Catholic Church even included this number among those who would receive worship, multiplying the representations of them in a single painting, or forming cycles with each of them in a work, until later some of them would be withdrawn. According to tradition, St. Michael is the head of the heavenly militia and defender of the Church. Precisely for this reason he fights against the rebellious angels and against the dragon of the Apocalypse. He is also psychopomp, that is to say, he leads the dead and weighs the souls on the day of the Last Judgment. Scholars have linked his cult to that of several gods of antiquity: Anubis in Egyptian mythology, Hermes and Mercury in classical mythology, and Wotan in Norse mythology. In the West, the cult of St. Michael began to develop from the 5th and 6th centuries, first in Italy and France, and then spreading to Germany and the rest of Christendom. The churches and chapels dedicated to him are innumerable around the year 1000, in connection with the belief that on that date the Apocalypse would arrive. His temples are often located on high places, since he is a celestial saint. The kings of France gave him a particular veneration from the 14th century, and the Counter-Reformation made him the head of the church against the Protestant heresy, giving a new impulse to his cult. St. Michael the Archangel is a military saint, and therefore patron saint of knights and of all trades related to weapons, as well as with the scales, for his role as apocalyptic judge. His iconography is of considerable richness, but relatively stable. As a general rule, he appears in the attire of a soldier or knight, holding a spear or sword and a shield decorated with a cross. When he fights the dragon, he fights on foot or in the air, which distinguishes him from St. George, who is almost always on horseback. However, the great difference between the two saints is St. Michael's wings. It is worth mentioning that during the Spanish colonial domination, a mainly religious painting was developed, aimed at Christianizing the indigenous peoples. The local painters were modeled on Spanish works, which they followed literally in terms of types and iconography. The most frequent models were the harquebusier angels and the triangular virgins, however, in the early years of the 19th century, already in times of independence and political opening of some of the colonies, several artists began to represent a new model of painting with its own identity.
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