Gregorio Vázquez de Arce (Santa Fe, New Granada, 1638 - 1711)

Gregorio Vázquez de Arce (Santa Fe, New Granada, 1638 - 1711)

"The Holy Family in Saint Joseph's workshop"

Oil on copper.

62,5 x 47,5 cm.

The lower margin of the copper plate is slightly damaged.The attribution of this work relates to the style and technique that characterize Vázquez: balanced compositions, soft tonalities and detail in the treatment of figures, elements and style that we observe in other paintings that have been signed by the artist and that allow us to affirm that this painting is by Vásquez. We refer, for example, to the paintings in his "Retablo de las Reliquias" or his “Saint Gertrude with the Christ Child” kept in the Santa Clara Church Museum in Bogota, in which similarities with this painting can be observed in the idealized representation of the faces, the delicate handling of light and the tonal palette dominated by warm and earthy colors.

The choice of the thick copper support, usual in Vásquez de Arce's small format works, denotes an interest in guaranteeing durability and a luminous finish, something common in works destined for altars or private devotional spaces, as would be the case here.

This painting comes from a time when New Granada was experiencing a boom in religious artistic production, driven by orders such as the Jesuits and Dominicans, who promoted artworks that were both didactic and devotional at the same time.

Gregorio Vásquez de Arce was an influential Colombian painter, the most important painter from 17th century New Granada. He was endowed with technical and stylistic mastery as reflected in cycles such as the "Retablo de las Reliquias" in the Church of San Ignacio in Bogota. With a prolific career that spanned much of his life, Vasquez left a legacy of religious artworks that significantly influenced the artistic development of the region. His style combines elements of European baroque with a sensitivity and devotion typical of the Latin American context of the 17th century. Vásquez, in fact, through his work, was a central figure in the consolidation of the Baroque in New Granada and his influence extended to later generations of artists in the region. Later painters took his style and adapted it to local needs, making his work a fundamental point of reference in the history of viceregal art. Marta Fajardo de Rueda, in an interesting article in the National University of Colombia magazine HiSTOReLo, affirms, in relation to the importance of the painter, that “with the work of Gregorio Vásquez and some of his followers, the existence of a Santa Fe school of painting can be identified. They had a similar interpretation of the engravings from which they assimilated the fundamentals of baroque painting. They are characterized by an attenuated use of color, which differentiates them from painters from other parts of Latin America. Undoubtedly, Vasquez stands out among them all for his mastery of drawing and balanced composition. With the training he received in the Figueroas' workshop and the skills he acquired through the continuous exercise of his work, he consolidated his own characteristic style.” 

The importance of Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos in the panorama of viceregal art is undeniable. Despite having produced a vast amount of paintings, his technical skill and the spiritual depth of his paintings continue to be admired and studied by scholars, collectors and museums around the world. 

The artist, of whom many biographies have been written, such as those by José Manuel Groot, Alberto Urdaneta and Roberto Pizano, has a large body of work that can still be found today in churches, convents and museums such as the Museo de Arte Colonial de Bogotá, which houses numerous canvases, some miniatures, and one hundred and five drawings: the largest collection of the painter's work. 

The scene depicts the Holy Family in an intimate, everyday environment, a typical Christian baroque theme that seeks to emphasize the humanity of sacred figures.  Just like any family, the patient Virgin Mary is doing embroidery while “meditating everything in her heart”; the chaste St. Joseph, focusing one of the essential virtues he possesses, is working in silence at carpentry, planing wood. The thrice saintly Jesus, as Son, is learning from his father and imitates him at woodworking, and appears as “building his future destiny”, preparing the stipe of his cross. The painting, with its colors, shows a model of all the virtues: humility, chastity, obedience, poverty, love of work and silence; in a word, the total practice of these virtues reflected and lived through by this family. The theme of the Holy Family became popular in art from the 1490s, but the veneration of the Holy Family formally began in the 17th century due to St. Francis de Laval, the first bishop of New France, who founded a confraternity with this name. The family is depicted as being all on the same level, on the same compositional plane, on the same floor, there is no one that predominates or stands out above the other. It is what is called the earthly Holy Trinity and although Saint Joseph had an almost caricatured secondary role in the iconography, from the Renaissance and the Baroque, he becomes very important, since the progressive humanization of the portrayals of Jesus and Mary would make this adoptive father gain presence, he is given increasingly friendly treatment and is portrayed in art as a loving and attentive father.In this regard, as we read in the fascinating article by Juan Pablo Cruz Medina (2014) “The Painting of the Holy Family: A Manual of Family Relations in the World of 17th Century Santafé”, the family, configured as the nucleus of the social body within the structure devised by Spain for the New World, early on became a concern for both the Church and the bureaucracy established in Latin America. From this, the Church developed a series of discursive structures aimed at establishing models of family life that would serve as examples of ideal behaviour throughout the 17th century. This ensured not only the maintenance of an "ecclesial" order in society but also the submission of society to the civil power established by the Spanish monarch in the new lands.

Medina highlights the artistic production developed by the Church in relation to the family. “One of the most significant pictorial sets within the visual corpus of the 17th century is that of the Holy Family,” which would continue to be represented ceaselessly thereafter. This ecclesiastical need also responds to the “emergence of the nuclear family model in Europe, which changed the conception of the extended family typical of the Middle Ages,” while in colonial Latin America it was of interest to “establish examples that would help shape a society governed by religious norms.”

Reference bibliography: 

- Cruz Medina, Juan Pablo. (2014). «La pintura de la Sagrada Familia. Un manual de relaciones familiares en el mundo de la Santafé del siglo XVII». Memoria y sociedad 18, n.° 36: 100-117. https://dx.doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.MYS18-36.psfm- Fajardo, Marta. (2014). Grabados europeos y pintura en el Nuevo Reino de Granada. “HiSTOReLo” Vol. 6, Nº 11, 68-125. - Fajardo, Marta. (n.d.). “Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos”. Real Academia de la Historia. https://dbe.rah.es/biografias/21372/gregorio-vasquez-de-arce-y-ceballos - Pizano, Roberto. (1985). "Gregorio Vásquez: Vida y obra". Banco de la República, Bogotá.- Sebastián, Santiago. (1985). "Gregorio Vásquez: la vida y obra del pintor más importante del Nuevo Reino de Granada". - Tovar, Gil. (1995). "El barroco en la Nueva Granada: Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos. Ediciones Nueva América, Bogotá.