Quito School; XVII- XVIII centuries. "Christ with the cross on his back". Oil on canvas. Keep the

Quito School; XVII- XVIII centuries.
"Christ with the cross on his shoulders".
Oil on canvas.
The original canvas is preserved.
It presents repainting and restorations.
Measurements: 155 x 110 cm; 168 x 124 cm (frame).
In this canvas the author captures one of the most dramatic moments of the Way of the Cross, the moment in which Christ bears the weight of the cross. In this episode it is common to see Simon the Cyrenian helping Jesus to carry the cross, or Veronica offering him a cloth to wipe his face clean of blood and sweat. However, the author of this canvas dispenses with these figures and seeks no theological meaning other than that of Christ's own suffering and voluntary sacrifice on behalf of humanity. In fact, this supreme generosity is reinforced by Jesus' own gaze, which is directed towards ours. The monumentality of the figure of Christ defines the entire image, in such a way that other elements such as the profiles of the soldiers' faces or the landscape in the background are relegated to the background.
It is worth mentioning that during Spanish colonial rule, a mainly religious painting was developed, aimed at Christianising the indigenous peoples. Local painters were modelled on Spanish works, which they followed literally in terms of type and iconography. The most frequent models were the harquebusier angels and the triangular virgins, but in the early 19th century, at the time of independence and political openness in some of the colonies, several artists began to depict a new model of painting with its own identity. Technically and stylistically, it was part of the Quito school, one of the most important colonial hotbeds of religious art in the world during the Baroque period. Indigenous and mestizo artists were trained in the workshops of the convents of the Ecuadorian capital. In the 17th century in particular, the Quito school of painting began to flourish, represented by four great masters: Hernando de la Cruz, Miguel de Santiago, Isabel de Santiago and Nicolás Javier Goribar, artists who started from a tradition originating in Spain, transgressing the imposed style and contributing an idiosyncratic language to their pictorial work.