Maria 1648

Curator: Gazing at Alonzo Cano's "Maria," painted around 1648, one can't help but notice her downcast gaze. What strikes you most immediately about this portrayal? Editor: It’s the fabric. It appears to be a heavily starched linen. Given her subdued affect, her social class is something of a puzzle, since linen was an affordable commodity even then. Curator: Good point! Cano definitely captures something of the domestic about her in the very rendering, an artist intensely devout and also rumored to have designed buildings and altars, always merging heavenly thoughts and common work. But what if this is no starched linen, what if it is simple muslin? A devotional image can give off a very subtle, humble and private affect with its fine details that suggest rather than narrate. Editor: Right, there is certainly an undercurrent here. Take the luminous paint. Notice how it has been thickly applied to enhance light, which suggests considerable expense in terms of importing, buying and combining dyes for it? Someone, or an institution, spent a lot on their image crafting. Curator: Perhaps. You could be right... Or perhaps it’s the Baroque sensibility? See that singular ray of light overhead? So painterly and evocative of grace and something bigger... Editor: True, though the use of oil paint, another significant factor in artworks of this period, afforded a smoothness that almost feels... manufactured. Even that single ray is calculated, though what materials would Cano need to get it looking just so... Curator: That’s true of many painters. And think about it from his perspective: to paint this, a deep immersion. You have to stand still for so long that you become what you're looking at! It demands total presence, a sort of ecstatic merging. I feel this as quiet love or joy here. Editor: It's an interesting tension. Materials speak to tangible value and labour. Yet, even within those constraints, the artist might express profound feeling through material choice, use of paint and texture and so on. Curator: Exactly! A dialogue between earth and heaven, as he would understand it... A dialogue perhaps, which might not even exist today! Editor: Yes, I see what you mean now.