Saint John of God

Saint John of God (1495-1550) was a Portuguese shepherd and soldier, occupations he abandoned to sell books and religious prints in Spain. 

Once released, on the advice of John of Avila, he rented a house in Granada and gave shelter to the poor and sick. His work inspired the creation of the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God. 

This order was of great importance in America from the moment it arrived in Cartagena in 1595 because early its members were responsible for installing and managing numerous hospitals throughout the continent, with the authorization of King Philip II. 

Canonized in 1690 by Pope Alexander VIII, the saint is depicted here in a grey coarse woolen cloth hood, said to have been made by the Bishop of Tuy, Don Sebastián Ramírez de Fuenleal, who in turn gave him the name John of God. 

In his left hand, he holds one of his best-known attributes: an open grenade that ends in five points, a symbol of the Passion of Christ and the unity of the Church. 

In his right hand, he holds aloft a crucifix, a symbol of his faith and the work he had as a preacher of Catholicism. 

In colonial painting, it was common to find images that represented different scenes on the same canvas. This was intended to give a certain narrative quality to the image, enabling its easy interpretation. In this case, a smaller scene is observed to the left of the saint. 

There, we see two figures representing another scene from the saint’s life. In it, John of God distributes food among the poor until he runs out of bread. Then, the archangel Saint Raphael appears before him to replenish the lack of food. 

The scene shows the archangel with his wings in view and wearing religious attire. At his side, Saint John of God carries in one of his hands a basket full of bread, another of the attributes with which he is usually recognized. Next to it, there are bunk beds for patients from the hospital. 

This image presents Saint John of God actively exercising his virtues, thus personifying a spirituality devoted to Christ with a charitable vocation, which the Church sought to spread among the faithful during the colonial period. 

In this canvas of the Colonial Museum, some blurred shapes and silhouettes are appreciated. It is possible that the artist made this work on a first painting that represented the same image, but with lower quality. These types of corrections are known as pentimentos or ‘painter’s regrets’.