Bulto (Penitente Nazarine Christ) 1939

Eldora Lorenzini made this watercolor of a Bulto—that's a carved wooden sculpture—back in 1939. Looking at the washes of color, I’m imagining the artist carefully layering the paint, building up these soft, translucent tones, and, here and there, splattering on these intense, visceral reds to mimic blood. It's an intriguing and unsettling picture. I think that the artist was perhaps grappling with the emotional and physical pain connected to religious devotion and sacrifice. I'm really struck by how Lorenzini rendered the texture of the wood itself. See how the artist detailed the marks, the knots and the grain? I feel like she wants us to reflect on the material nature of the sculpture and how it informs the meaning of the artwork. It puts me in mind of other artists, maybe someone like Francisco de Zurbarán. Paintings like this remind me that we’re all in conversation, trading ideas and insights across time. I feel that this painting embraces ambiguity, and opens up multiple ways of understanding what it means to represent suffering and belief.