Saint James

This is one of the five registers on the predella for the altarpiece of Saint John the Baptist that Joan Gascó was hired to paint on November 11th 1527 for one of the chapels in the convent church of La Mare de Déu del Carme in Vic. It bears formal likenesses with the Saint Barbara given to Joan Gascó eleven years earlier (MEV 44), especially for the pose and the placing of the two saints before an identical throne. However, in this Saint James we see how, in the closing stages of his artistic career, Joan Gascó clearly adopted certain Italianate innovations that distance him from the late-Gothic ideas of Flemish origin in the early stages of his career. This turnaround is due, among other causes, to the incorporation in his workshop of his son Perot, at least from 1523 onwards.