The Burial of Christ

Juan de Juni undertook between 1541 and 1544 the of a group of sculptors that represented Christ burial for the funerary chapel of the Franciscan Brother Antonio de Guevara, writer, chronicler of the Emperor Charles and bishop of Mondoñedo, in the convent of Saint Francis in Valladolid. This group was inside a retablo structure made in plaster. The work has a marked scenographic character. Thought to be seen from the front, it is composed by six figures arranged around a recumbent Christ, symmetrically distributed around an axis that divides the group of the Virgin and Saint John so that the movement and stance of the figures is counteracted by another one similarly opposed, being their positions conditioned to achieve a complete and frontal vision of the group. The figure of Christ, of magnificent body and head and described as Laocoön pathos, has a deep expression. The other characters express their reaction before the corpse, concentrated on the scene, except for Joseph of Arimathea, who with a thorn in his hand, addresses the viewer. The facial features characterization show suffering faces, while the bodies are covered with abundant clothes typical from the author's ability to model. Everything is polychromed with exquisite care, using the estofado technique as well as the point of the brush to favor verism.