The ''Cristo Yacente (Dead Christ) of El Pardo'', is a life-size polychromed sculpture by Spanish sculptor
Gregorio Fernández, executed between 1614 and 1615. Housed in a chapel of the Capuchin Monastery of
El Pardo (Madrid), the sculpture was commissioned by King
Philip III to celebrate the birth of his son Philip IV.
The ''Cristo yacente of El Pardo'' is the most famous of the fourteen ''"Cristos"'' produced by Fernández and his workshop.
As devotional images, many of them were processed during
Holy Week
Holy Week () commemorates the seven days leading up to Easter. It begins with the commemoration of Triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, marks the betrayal of Jesus on Spy Wednesday (Holy Wednes ...
with other “
pasos” (elaborate religious floats adorned with sculptures depicting scenes from the Passion of Christ). All these images were created in accordance with
Counter-Reformation
The Counter-Reformation (), also sometimes called the Catholic Revival, was the period of Catholic resurgence that was initiated in response to, and as an alternative to or from similar insights as, the Protestant Reformations at the time. It w ...
ideology that required realism in religious images to impress and move the believer.
Sources
*
{{Refend
* Colón Mendoza, Ilenia. ''The Cristos yacentes of Gregorio Fernández: Polychrome Sculptures of the Supine Christ in Seventeenth-Century Spain''. England: Routledge Publishing, 2015.
External links
Capuchin Monastery of El Pardo
1610s sculptures
Sculptures by Gregorio Fernández
Statues of Jesus
Christian art about death