Juan de Mesa

Juan de Mesa incarnated in a life as short as it was intense the evangelical mandate of the consequence between words and deeds: "You will know them by their fruits". With less than a decade of colossal work, he entered the representation of the passion and death of Christ in ways in which pain and drama never overflowed the glass of balance and sacred anointing. His impact on the brotherhoods was lasting and his mark has never been lost, but while his images gathered the devotion of the simple and the admiration of those who knew the art, his name and profile remained buried for almost three centuries by the fame of his teacher , Juan Martínez Montañés. The account of his life is short and full of gaps, so this book looks at his sculptures and how they remain valid four centuries after they were made. The professors who have reflected on the significance of Juan de Mesa's work and the confreres who have spent their lives serving the plants in his images take the floor to compose the mosaic with small tesserae that explains why the sculptor's legacy fascinates and it challenges the people of the 21st century as well as those of the 17th century.