The Descent from the Cross

The Descent from the Cross (El Descendimiento) by the famous representative of the Murcian school, Domingo Valdivieso y Henarejos (1830-1872), is a magnificent monument of the 19th-century Spanish academic religious painting. The artwork was created in the period of the highest artistic productivity of the Isabeline romantic-academic period. The scene is a very solemn one described in the Gospel of Mark (15:42-47) in which the body of Jesus Christ is taken down from the cross at dusk by his devoted followers and his mournful family. Valdivieso is working with this iconic imagery in a very narrative way and compresses space. The body of Christ is laid out with great care and wrapped in a clean linen shroud. It is interesting to note in this work that it was accomplished with the assistance of the artist's particular friend, the legendary historical master painter Eduardo Rosales, who was the live anatomical model of Christ here. The multi-figural composition is called Around the Savior, where the figure of Joseph of Arimathea holds up the cross with Nicodemus and John the Apostle, while the sorrowful holy women (including Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary) stand around. Valdivieso's staging groups are close-knit and sculptural, not bound by idealized Baroque formulas, and more faithful to tactile realism, in which raw human emotions and mental reflections emerge. The Diputación de Murcia's support for Valdivieso's pensioned studies in Rome and Paris shows a deep stylistic evolution in his career. In Italy, he learned the purity of the Nazarene movement and the masters of the Renaissance perspective face to face. Everything is linear, controlled, theatrical, and precise in its texture; the thick folds of the clothes, the chilling flesh colors of the Savior, and the sacred vessels filled with ointments, placed in the foreground, all illustrate this synthesis. The horizon of the work is slightly extended to include the end of a dramatic evening, while a dark and moody chiaroscuro effect is over the hill of Golgotha. Valdivieso exhibited this canvas at the renowned National Exhibition of Fine Arts, where the academic standard and the depth of treatment of human suffering won him considerable critical praise and a prize medal in 1864.