Romanesque Christ, 12th-13th century.Polychrome wood. Support on wooden board upholstered in red.

Romanesque Christ, 12th-13th century.
Polychrome wood. Support on wooden board upholstered in red.
Size: 17.5 x 15.5 x 3 cm (Christ); 29 x 22.5 cm (panel).
Round sculpture representing Christ crucified while still alive, with the wound in his side, his head fallen on his chest and his eyes open. Formally, the anatomy of Christ stands out: as was usual in the Romanesque, it lacks naturalistic pretensions; his anatomy is extremely synthetic, reduced to the elementary, representing concise elements detailed by incision, such as the hair or the cloth of purity.
During the Romanesque period, sculpture was most often conceived as part of the architecture, as in the Gothic period. However, there were also examples of free-standing sculpture, the most common themes being the Crucified Christ and the Virgin and Child (the pantheon of saints was still small). There were two models, the "colobium" and the "perizonium". The first is a Christ nailed to the cross, still alive, with a talar robe and four nails. It is a rare model, as it was only made in certain European territories (in Spain, only in the Crown of Aragon, especially in Catalonia, but always coexisting with the second model). The "perizonium" is also a Christ on the cross with four nails, dead or alive, but dressed in a cloth of purity. The piece presented here belongs to this second group. During the Romanesque period, four-nailed Christs were the norm, but this one has only three nails, a characteristic possibly due to the influence of external sources. The perizonium was the model that persisted, as the "colobium" was only made during the Romanesque period. They were also often polychrome pieces, whether worked in wood, metal, ivory or stone. Such pieces were intended to decorate the interiors of churches, mainly the chapel area, as they were not yet decorated with canvases.
Romanesque sculpture pursued mainly didactic purposes, and its images were conceived as a visual narrative, which should always be clearly legible. At this time, prior to the search for naturalism that would emerge during the Gothic period, the language is purely conceptual, and functions on the basis of symbols and conventions accepted by all. In this sense, anatomy is synthetic, representative rather than a reflection of the natural, as is the treatment of the face.