Christ Served by Angels in the Desert

Francisco Pacheco (1564-1644), Spanish painter, art theorist, and teacher, painted Christ Served by Angels in the Desert, his greatest masterpiece. The painting illustrates the time immediately after Christ's forty days in the wilderness when he was tempted by the devil as recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. The large scene is set around a long table, where Jesus is sitting quietly contemplating. He's sitting here alone since all these trials and tribulations have come upon him, and he has a party of angels ministering to him and robes and a heap of heaven's food around him. Pacheco's treatment of heaven is not abstract or ethereal, but very realistic and descriptive, in a highly structured way. The angels are represented in very domestic and human activities. Others are preparing food, including fish, representing Christ, and salt and spices (pepper), representing everyday food items. On the left side, there is a group of celestial entities, each holding a musical instrument, dancing among the sun and the moon, creating a celestial harmony in the midst of silence. Furthermore, the angels on the left are depicted as playing music, each with a musical instrument, which seems to be a stringed classical instrument, indicating a harmonious interaction in the still and silent desert setting. All elements in the scene are a symbol of the sacral counter-reformation, symbolic in theological meaning, and in reference to Christ's double nature, his fleshly weakness (in hunger), and his power over the host of angels. In addition, the background is a soft, hazy, distant view of a black figure, possibly a representation of the figure of John the Baptist, preaching to a crowd of indistinct figures, with a setting of an introduction to the main feast. This artwork was a work of over a year in making. It is a very descriptive preparatory drawing, dated to October 7, 1615, to substantiate the time that Pacheco worked on it. A grand architectural form, sumptuous fabric, and painstakingly organized still life on the table, all the reasons Pacheco was appointed the official censor and inspector of religious paintings for the Spanish Inquisition, a perfectly orthodox, beautifully organized masterpiece designed to instruct, inspire, and humble the faithful. Christ Served by Angels in the Desert receives the same, bright, intellectual, anatomical balance, lighting, and forms of late mannerism, but now firmly in the realm of the tactile realism of the Spanish Baroque period.