Gregorio
Hernandez.
Gregorio Hernández, also called Gregorio Fernández (born
c. 1576, Sarria?, Spain—died Jan. 22, 1636, Valladolid), Spanish
sculptor whose works are among the finest examples of polychromed wood
sculpture created during the Baroque period. His images are
characterized by their emotional intensity, spiritual expressiveness,
and sense of dramatic gravity, as well as by their illusionistic
realism.
Many of his best known statues,
such as “St. Veronica” (1614) and the “Pietà” (1617), were once part of
sculptural groups for pasos, or floats with scenes from the Passion,
which are carried by Spanish religious confraternities during Holy Week
processions. One of his iconographical innovations was that of depicting
the dead Christ stretched out on a sheet, a well-known example being at
the Capuchin monastery of S. Cristo at El Pardo near Madrid (1605).
Besides devotional images and pasos, Hernández executed many
altarpieces. Among the most important are those at S. Miguel (1606) and
the Convento de las Huelgas (1616) in Valladolid, at the Colegiata de S.
Pedro in Lerma (1615), and the high altar for the cathedral at Plasencia
(1624–34).
Encyclopædia Britannica
