The Sacrifice of Isaac

Santiago Rebull of México City was considered one of the most promising members of the San Carlos Academy's first generation of students following its renovation in the 1840's.He was an outstanding pupil in the composition class taught by the Catalonian, Pelegrín Clavé, the director of the painting department, one of the key figures in the legal and artistic renovation of the Academy that stemmed from the decrees issued in 1843, and a conservative who favored the depiction of incidents from the holy scriptures that illustrated traditional values. Rebull executed the Sacrifice of Isaac in Rome, where he had held a scholarship at Saint Luke's Academy since 1852. As evidence of his artistic progress, he sent the work to México City so that it could be shown at the Academy's XI th Exhibition in 1858, in which year it became part of the said institutions collection. He presents an idealized depiction of the climactic moment in the biblical story upon which the work is based, showing the exact moment at which the angel, just in time, stays Abrahams hand as he is about to stab his son in token of his faithfulness, as God has instructed him to do. In the composition, which follows a daring spiral pattern, the marble-like tones of the delicately portrayed bodies of Isaac and the Angel fittingly contrast with the intense yellow of the patriarchs robe and the red of the cloak that has fallen to the ground, leaving the young man about to be sacrificed half naked. The coloring employed is not typical of the cold tones and pale blues favored by Clavé and his followers. In the background, a symbolic lamb, in accordance with the scriptural story, is waiting to be sacrificed in Isaac's place. This work was awarded to the MUNAL as part of its founding endowment in November, 1982.